November 8, 2018 – Voters approved five of the 10 largest transportation ballot measures by dollar amount this Election Day, with four failing and one still too close to call.
November 7, 2018 – Voters considered over 300 transportation-related ballot measures this Election Day. While Eno will have much more extensive analysis in the coming weeks, key transportation ballot measures generally fared well, with some noteworthy exceptions.
November 2, 2018 – With the related announcement that the Eno Center has finally put the entire 57-year run of Traffic Quarterly (1947-1981) and Transportation Quarterly (1982-2003) online, some of the Eno staff have taken a look through those archives and singled out some articles that they found interesting or relevant.
November 2, 2018 – A public comment period for the SAFE Vehicles Rule proposal closed on October 26, with over 400,000 comments submitted on the NHTSA and EPA dockets.
November 1, 2018 – While voters across 30 states will see transportation ballot measures this Election Day, Coloradans are set to decide on two: one that funds road projects without raising new revenue, and another that raises the sales tax to fund road and multimodal projects.
October 19, 2018 – The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has updated its massively useful study of total federal, state and local spending on transportation and water infrastructure since 1956 to cover fiscal years 2015, 2016 and 2017 (the previous report cut off at FY 2014). The study shows that combined state and local spending in these areas peaked in 2015, in real dollars, and actually declined in both years since.
October 9, 2018 – This November, voters across the country will decide whether they want their city or state to invest more in transportation.
October 3, 2018 – Three months from the Dec. 31 deadline, New Jersey Transit told the Senate Commerce Committee at a hearing yesterday that it is “working diligently” to catch up on installation and qualify for an alternative schedule under the positive train control (PTC) law.
October 4, 2018 – On the first day of the new fiscal year, the Federal Highway Administration issued a formal notice apportioning $42.3 billion in highway formula contract authority to state governments.
September 4, 2018 – As Eno continues its examination of transportation at the ballot boxduring the 2018 midterm elections, we find that measures to raise revenue are not the only ones attracting attention this year. Lockbox amendments—that dedicate certain revenues to transportation uses—are once again on the ballot.
September 4, 2018 – The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a working paper last week summarizing all the available economic studies of whether or not federal highway funding supplements, or crowds out, state and local highway funding.
September 4, 2018 – Last week, the Federal Highway Administration distributed $4.2 billion in additional highway formula funding for fiscal year 2018 to state DOTs. The annual “August redistribution” of obligation limitation, which must be exercised by September 30 or lost forever, has never been larger (last year it was $3.2 billion, and two years before that it was under $2 billion).
August 16, 2018 – On August 9, the House Railroads Subcommittee went to Sacramento for a field hearing on the California high-speed rail project.
Thursday, August 9, 2018 – House Transportation and Infrastructure – Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials – subcommittee field hearing to conduct oversight of the California high-speed rail project (witness list and streaming video information to be posted here) – 10:30 a.m. (Pacific Time), John E. Moss Federal Building, Sacramento, California.
July 27, 2018 – Although behind-the-scenes negotiations on the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill (S. 1405) continued this week, the press of other business has made it unlikely that the legislation will make it to the Senate floor next week. And with the Senate scheduled to take a recess the week after that, the earliest that the bill could make it to the floor is likely mid-August.
Seven major cities and 10 states currently have some type of fee or tax on TNC trips, and more are under consideration.
July 19, 2018 – Transportation infrastructure was largely absent from a FEMA report on how it can better prepare for natural disasters following a record-breaking 2017 hurricane and wildfire season.
July 13, 2018 – The latest variant of legislation to turn responsibility for most highway funding back to states, eliminate most federal mass transit spending, and reduce federal gasoline and diesel fuel taxes was introduced in the Senate. S. 3190, the “Transportation Empowerment Act,” was introduced on July 10 by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marco Rubio (R-FL).
July 5, 2018 – The nine states of the Multi-State Zero-Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Task Force released a new action plan this week outlining priority actions to rapidly accelerate the adoption of ZEVs in their states.
June 29, 2018 – Today, the group of New York and New Jersey entities responsible for the Gateway Program (the $30+ billion portfolio of rail projects in those two states used by Amtrak and local transit agencies) submitted a revised plan for the first project in the portfolio and a status update on the second project (which is by far the biggest project in the portfolio, or indeed the country, at least as far as projects trying to get federal mass transit dollars goes).