TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

This seems like a plan that has some potential to make change in Vermont. I hope that it moves forward.

Transportation Electrification: Developing High Impact Policies for NJ's Most Environmentally Burdened Communities

August 7, 2019

To: Governor Baker, Mayor Bowser, Governor Carney, Governor Hogan, Governor Lamont, Governor Murphy, Governor Northam, Governor Raimondo, Governor Scott, and Governor Wolf

Re: 2019 Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) Regional Policy Design Process

Sent via: https://www.transportationandclimate.org/main-menu/tci-regional-policy-design-stakeholder-input-form

The Sierra Club is sharing with you the attached 2,435 comments from our members and supporters in your states and the District of Columbia (DC) regarding the 2019 TCI Regional Policy Design Process. More than 700 of those members and supporters across the 9 states and DC have included personal messages, often encouraging swift action to modernize our transportation system, reduce climate pollution from burning motor fuels, and ensure equitable access to the benefits of clean transportation, particularly for those communities that have been overburdened and under-resourced by our current system. Many have also provided specific recommendations and requests for investments and clean transportation projects in their communities.

The Sierra Club continues to support your efforts through this process. We further recommend that you and your teams transparently and inclusively develop an understanding of which communities in the region are overburdened by pollution from motor fuels and under-resourced when it comes to access to clean, affordable, and rapid transportation, and to move forward by modeling and sharing the impacts for those communities of both a cap and invest policy for climate pollution from motor fuels consistent with meeting state climate protection targets and other complementary policies as discussed in the state and regional workshops and listening sessions. We also encourage more engagement by individual states and DC with such overburdened and under-resourced communities, by partnering with and supporting community representatives in the planning and hosting of workshops and listening sessions during the evening or on the weekend, accessible by public transportation, and with services for people with disabilities, limited English proficiency, and children and other care duties.

As demonstrated by the more than 300 participants at the in-person regional workshop on July 30th and these thousands of comments from Sierra Club members and supporters, a robust and inclusive clean and modern transportation policy design process this year is vitally important for the future prosperity of our communities.

Sincerely,

Mark Kresowik
Deputy Director, Eastern Region
Sierra Club

To reduce emissions from transportation we need a strong focus on the land use/transportation connection. We need to focus growth in cities and towns and in walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented centers and corridors. Funding transit alone will not be enough - it must be connected to compact, walkable development. Universal adoption of electric vehicles while not addressing sprawling development will mean continued long-distance driving and highway construction, while also risking the conversion of vast acreage of farms and forest to solar arrays just to supply longer distance vehicle travel. So land use must be a primary focus. As for investments to be made - they should include transit tied to land use, reduction in transit fares, affordable housing close to transit, jobs and services, and other infrastructure that supports transit-oriented communities.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is a 22-year-old non-profit working in DC, Maryland and Virginia and the leading organization promoting walkable, transit-oriented communities (TOD) as the best way for the DC region to grow. We have convinced the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to make TOD the core framework for regional growth in their Region Forward Plan and in their Visualize2045 long range transportation plan, however, spending practices by state and local government still include massive highway and arterial road expansion. Meanwhile the region must do more to advance public and private investment in TOD at Metrorail stations and other high capacity transit. We received the MWCOG Regional Partnership Award in 2017.

Continuing Advanced Biofuels USA comments: our proposal for a Disappearing Carbon Tax on the non-renewable portions of transportation fuel with proceeds prioritized to increasing the availability of cleaner, less polluting, less expensive renewable and bio-fuel in low income and high pollution areas.

Modeling greenhouse gas reduction from the adoption of electric vehicles without including in that model the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions due to the production (raw materials, manufacturing, shipping to end user, and eventual disposal/recycling) of those EV's is an incomplete model. The first model presented in Aug 2018 only showed GHG reduction from on-road emissions, without presenting the significant GHG emissions from the production of those new EV's. Accounting for and modeling only on-road emissions reductions will also bias the investments toward EV's when other investments may be more effective interventions.

Another concern that I have with bookkeeping of (car-like) EV emissions reductions is that the concept of a low occupancy motor vehicle supports several system level inefficiencies that increase GHG emissions. For example, EV's (with lower operating and fuel costs) are likely to support and perhaps expand sprawling single family housing development, increasing that type of GHG heavy development while also wiping out more GHG absorption due to development of forests and open space. If there was a way to model VMT-increase (or decrease) and the correlation to sprawling development and associated emissions, the model could more completely capture the GHG impacts of low-occupancy vehicle trips.

Keep up the great work!

The letter attached signed by 27 organizations articulates key principles Maryland should incorporate in process and design of the Transportation & Climate Initiative with other states.

Please find attached joint comments from Climate XChange and Health Care Without Harm concerning the planned modeling scenarios for TCI, directed to the Technical Analysis Workgroup.

Copied and gave presentation to Essex Economic Development Committee. They loved my idea of making Saxon Hill Road a Greenway Linear Park as this already pristine, well maintained gravel public road, is an effective means of connecting people with their jobs in Saxon Hill Business District, school, and the land the Town now owns. The Greenway concept is a response to a Town severely fragmented. It would serve as an access by foot, bike, electric bike or ski not only to get to businesses in Saxon Hill Business District, but connects one another with the 90 acre school property, the new 225 acres gifted to Essex for passive recreation and connects all portions of Saxon Hill Road with one another. Our Town outside the Village community has fragmented neighborhoods, Saxon Hill Business District to Jericho line becoming very populated but, our parks, wet lands, playgrounds, trails, public gravel roads, and other open spaces, are scattered; to many people, accessible only bar car. This Greenway concept which has maybe 6 houses at most with long driveways, focuses on reconnecting our recreational carbon free lifestyle that most millennials want, in order to decide if they want to live here. The question is: how convenient will you make it for them? I gave presentation on why millennials are leaving Vermont, and how a simple concept of putting up Greenway signs to connect Saxon to Thompson Dr., Allen Martin all within the Saxon Hill Business District would be a millennial magnet. Most of living here no matter what age or background are demanding quality of life worth living and
Demand Carbon Free Lifestyle. Thank You, Patty Davis