2020 Impact Report

We all know 2020 was a time like no other for transportation.

 

At the beginning of last April, when all but seven states had issued some type of stay-at-home order, passenger transportation essentially halted. Airline travel was cleaved and traffic on toll roads sank. Transit agency chiefs found themselves begging people not to ride in order to protect their workers and the essential front lines workers who still needed to travel. Truly it was a year none of us expected.

 

Yet transportation does not operate in a vacuum and, in fact, is nested in the major issues that defined the tumultuous year. The complicated logistics of transporting millions of vaccines illustrate the importance of transportation and well as its role in getting people to testing and inoculation sites. The race and equity issues that the nation reckoned with highlight the role of transportation in providing inclusive access to jobs, education, and health care. Ongoing climate concerns spotlight the fact last year transportation remained the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gases.

 

In short, the last twelve months demonstrated clearly why Eno's work is more important, imperative, and impactful as ever.

 

In March we established a comprehensive hub on our website for COVID-19 news and information and a collection of helpful resources for transportation professionals. We also launched a Road to Recovery webinar series that focuses on how transportation organizations can strategically prepare for their post-COVID future. The series features advice from practitioners and policy experts from their real-world experiences.

 

While the pandemic made Eno's excellent in-person classes and courses impossible, we quickly pivoted to virtual learnings to ensure the industry's professional development needs would continue to be met. The top-notch curriculum was supplemented with content relevant to the existential challenges transit agencies, companies, and organizations were facing. We met professionals' demands for the leadership "edge" during the pandemic to advance their careers, for better sense-making on transportation's changing landscape and, ultimately, what all this means for them personally.

 

Our policy work remained as timely as ever as we accelerated critical projects on subjects such as the role of transportation in improving America's health and protecting transportation's front-line workforce. We also reoriented research and analysis on a range of topics from congestion pricing, to mobility-on-demand, to unmanned aerial systems to reflect not just the current moment, but the road ahead. Our work on transit costs and project delivery is proving particularly important as agencies potentially look to do more in a resource-constrained environment.

 

And at a time when informed facts and independent insights without the spin are at a premium, Eno Transportation Weekly was there to provide that valuable perspective. With the transportation-related news and analysis coming thick and fast all year long, ETW demonstrated why it's so indispensable.

 

But we do not do it alone. Everything we do reflects some kind of partnership, whether formal or informal. Our stellar Boards of Directors, Advisors, and Regents continue to lend their valuable time and expertise. And in a year filled with plenty of distractions, our members, contributors, and affiliates reaffirmed their commitment to this organization again and again, for which we are very grateful.

 

Like last year, we know 2021 will be far from normal. Importantly for us, it is Eno's Centenary. We look forward to working with you all as we celebrate the last 100 years of legacy, innovation, and impact. Thanks to you, we are poised, ready, and strategically set for the next 100 as well.