TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Attached, please find a letter congratulating Gov. Raimondo and her administration on their contributions to the TCI policy framework and the development process.

Attached, please find a letter congratulating Gov. Scott and his administration on their contributions to the TCI policy framework and the development process.

On behalf of nearly 300 supporters in the TCI region, we submit the following petition with signatures attached.

Dear Decision makers:

We applaud your efforts to design a regional carbon pricing program for the transportation sector across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Region. There is no question, we must take steps to cut pollution from this sector and invest in solutions.

We must simultaneously take specific, measurable, and meaningful steps to ensure the communities hit first and worst by pollution, or who have inadequate access to mobility options, can fully participate and benefit from a clean, modern, reliable, and affordable transportation system.

This commitment should be expressed in any regional commitment (such as an MOU), and should not be left to individual states to determine whether or how they will address the needs of our most impacted communities.

Last summer, organizations representing racial, economic, transit, and environmental justice communities delivered a set of 9 principles for policy design to ensure the regional program builds in the guardrails that will ensure protections and guarantees for communities most impacted. Each of these equity principles, especially a clear process for ensuring communities are at the table, must be baked into the regional program, committed to by each state that plans to adopt the program, in order to ensure that some communities don’t get left behind.

I echo and support the voices of those who are directly impacted determining what they need to see as part of the program design. I urge you to commit to specific steps for each of the 9 principles for policy design in any regional MOU.

Thank you,
(Signatures attached)

Link to 9 principles for equitable policy design, previously submitted July 26th, 2019:
https://www.transportationandclimate.org/sites/default/files/webform/tci_2019_input_form/Regional%20Policy%20Design%20Principles%20for%20Equity.pdf

Thank you for your leadership in this crucial conversation to rethink our transportation system so it becomes sustainable, accessible, and equitable for all people. MassBike is Massachusetts' statewide bicycle advocacy organization, and we are encouraged by the potential that TCI brings to the development of much needed bicycle infrastructure on a regional scale.

Too often bicycle infrastructure is thought of as a side-note to greater roadway projects, many of which are only within municipal boundaries -- this is especially true in Massachusetts. However, by engaging TCI we will be able to expand the scale of how these projects are designed and implemented, which affords us the ability to bring safe, attractive, and convenient bicycle infrastructure to all people throughout the Commonwealth, and especially to marginalized communities which are largely left of bicycle infrastructure improvements. Considering that the bicycle is a truly sustainable form of transportation, we have the potential to dramatically impact our emissions and exponentially grow everyday bicycle riding, but only if we build modern, connected, and seamless bikeways.

MassBike encourages the TCI to be a tool for bicycling to be integrated with all modes, and we encourage you to not to separate bicycling funding from the greater conversations of transit, roadway & bridge redesign, and electric vehicle infrastructure. Transportation needs to be thought of with a multi-disciplinary approach, and the future of transportation will be in providing options so that people do not rely solely on one mode. A person will one day take the train and bus, on another day need to drive, and on another day choose to bicycle. Thus, bicycling needs to be part of every conversation, and the challenge will be to balance the development of as many sustainable and equitable modes of transportation as possible.

We need to plan for people to ride their bikes to transit hubs, to integrate electric vehicles and electric bicycle charging stations, to pursue the development of long-distance bikeways like the Mass Central Rail Trail and the East Coast Greenway, and more, in order to make everyday bicycling a feasible option for our citizenry.

We also encourage the TCI to promote safer modes of transportation, as part of "sustainability" will also be to develop modes that do not injure and kill people. Part of this conversation will be to utilize the framework of the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), but also to build on these programs to allocate greater support toward bicycling and walking safety improvements, and to recognize that by shifting transportation modes away from automobiles and toward active transportation we will promote sustainability and equity for more people. HSIP and TAP arguably provide the bare minimum of what is acceptable in highway funding toward safer bicycling and walking. The TCI should be a tool to do much better than these programs, and we should seek to make a true impact to develop connected infrastructure that incentivize people to get out of their automobiles and choose safe, sustainable, and active transportation.

As the conversation develops, we strongly encourage that the program works hard to make sure marginalized communities, environmental justice communities, and people typically note engaged in transportation funding conversations know about TCI and how they can participate in the program. Along these lines, MassBike would appreciate the opportunity to be a continued part of this conversation going forward, as we can engage our membership statewide to make a robust contribution to the program. We thank you for this opportunity to comment on the program as it is being conceived.

Sincerely,
Galen Mook
Executive Director
Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike)
www.massbike.org

No climate benefits will result from this tax. Any reduction in emissions will reduce future temperature increases by a minuscule amount. It's a regressive tax increase masquerading as a feel good measure.

Please see comments from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission attached. Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback.

This is an ILLEGAL GAS TAX. The voters of Massachusetts rejected this concept in 2014. The proposed “fee” (tax) needs to go through the appropriate legislative process. In addition, funding of these progressive initiatives should come from sources other than overburdened taxpayers. STOP.