TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

I support all TCI efforts to reduce and mitigate fossil fuel consumption, including stopping sprawl and tree removal, planting trees; encouraging alternative energy sources, a enacting a large carbon tax, putting tariffs on products from countries who waste fossil fuels to produce goods.
Put reuse before recycle. In sum everything that helps to reduce escalating climate change

Transportation is the number one source of climate pollution in the United States. That means it's time to totally reimagine the way that we transport people and goods.

The states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and the city of Washington, D.C., are working on a groundbreaking policy to modernize the transportation sector under the Transportation and Climate Initiative.

In order for this regional plan to work, governors of these states and the mayor of Washington, D.C., must ensure that this transportation plan is bold enough to cut harmful transportation pollution at the scale needed to avert the climate crisis. We need a plan that holds large transportation polluters accountable for the pollution they create and invests in clean transportation solutions including:

1. More public transit and electric vehicle infrastructure in rural areas
2. Expansion of commuter rail, electric vehicles, and streets in the suburbs that are safe, walkable, and bikeable
3. Sustainable and equitable housing near transit and electric bus fleets in urban communities

Opponents of the Transportation and Climate Initiative have been flooding a public comment page on this plan with negative comments. I am sending these comments to support the Initiative and show there are people that understand the critical need to change how transportation needs to change in the United States.

We need environmentally-friendly public transportation to help combat pollution. Plus, the smell of the exhaust from buses can be horrible.

I strongly support a bold TCI that requires transportation-sector polluters
to pay for the pollution, funding investments that reduce carbon emissions on
a sufficient scale to truly address the climate crisis.

Common sense dictates more public transit, expansion of commuter rail, particularly along the Boston to Norfolk corridor, and electric vehicle infrastructure in rural areas. We need streets and sidewalks in the suburbs that are safe, walkable, and bikeable. And lastly, sustainable and equitable housing near transit and electric bus fleets in urban communities but more importantly, urban planning that allows one to live within five to ten miles of their employment which will reduce the need for long commutes and make public transportation more sensible. We need to stop building more HOV highway lanes but build rail and commuter and high speed trains.

I support public transit options that promote an electrified economy, moving away from fossil fuels and the resulting pollution and climate impact. In particular I urge support of solar and wind renewables and hydrogen.

Virginia should join TCI to fund better transportation infrastructure and reduce traffic. Our communities should all enjoy the benefits of cleaner air from reduced reliance on fossil fuels. Urgency in this transition will help educate the public on the climate crisis.

Please, Do the Right Thing for Ours and Our Children's Future. What would They be Proud Of?

I am thrilled that my state is one of those supporting the Transportation and Climate Initiative. Let's ensure that Virginia is at the forefront of efforts to combat the worst effects of climate change, and perhaps even to turn climate change around.