TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Reducing our carbon emissions is critical and we need to make long term investments now.

Our transportation system is stuck in the dark ages. Traffic congestion from millions of cars and trucks are polluting our lungs and planet more than ever before. But as we enter this new decade, we have an opportunity modernize how we get from point A to point B.

I strongly support the creation of an enforceable limit on transportation pollution and investment in clean, modern mobility solutions across the region! Transportation is currently a huge source of harmful emmissions that have wreaked climate chaos that has harmed people and other life (storms, floods, fires).

I live in Springfield, Massachusetts, which has the, shameful, statewide highest rate of respiratory illness in chidren, due to air pollution (and the city still puts vulnerable children on filthy, diesel-fueled school buses). The city's large minority, and poor population suffers most. Let's stop it now and move forward by mandating, and enforcing, clean transportation, in our cities, in our states, in our region! Please protect the children and the planet.

Thank your for your attention to this critically important issue.

Reducing fossil fuel emissions is good for the planet. We need to move forward when we can and take actions to solve the climate crisis at hand.

As a technology entrepreneur, business executive, and longtime MA resident, I support a strong plan to improve and expand public transportation. The lack thereof impedes access to employees and, therefore, economic growth. The negative environmental impact of carbon-based transportation also paints a grim picture of the future, both for my family and our country.

The TCI is an important effort that will tackle one of the most stubbornly high carbon emitting sectors of our economy and a sector that has worsened public health over the past decade even as various initiatives have cut health-damaging pollution from other fossil fuel-burning sectors of the economy. As a medical student, I have helped treat patients with heart attacks, asthma attacks, and COPD exacerbations in Boston, where life-giving oxygen is restricted from reaching the organs that need it, causing many people to gasp, full-bodied, heart-wrenchingly, as they spend all their energy just to take in the next breath. All of these conditions are made worse by the pollution co-emitted with carbon dioxide when our vehicles burn fossil fuels. As a New York Times investigation found in 2019, traffic and ground-level concentrations of these damaging pollutants have increased over the course of the last decade in every city in the region, putting our most vulnerable citizens, including children, the elderly, and those with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions at higher risk of disease and death. All of these conditions are worsened too by the effects of warming climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions. A strong, ambitious, and aggressive schedule for reducing carbon emissions from the transportation sector is essential to reversing the worrying trend of increasing pollution in our communities and protecting the most vulnerable among us. The threat of climate change likewise demands a schedule of reductions that achieves zero emissions from transportation by 2050 in the US in order to avoid the worst effects of increased global temperatures. In addition, the changes in the transportation sector sparked by such a policy could stimulate economic growth and opportunities in the electrification of vehicle fueling infrastructure and in the development of a local electric vehicle industry that has so far been limited largely to west of the Mississippi. Given the health co-benefits of reducing fossil fuel use in the transportation sector, the resistance of the transportation sector to gains in efficiency and reductions in carbon emissions that we've seen in the power sector, and the urgent threat of climate change to our people and communities, I urge the TCI members to craft a strong and aggressive schedule of emissions reduction.

Human caused climate change is one of the biggest threats to life on earth and we need solutions now. We cannot keep stalling when it comes to doing something about this great problem we are facing. Transportation is one of the leading causes of carbon pollution and we need the TCI to address this problem. I am grateful that I live in a state that is willing to do something about this great threat while the federal government is choosing to worsen the problem. I hope that Massachusetts, along with other states, joins this much-needed initiative.

Bravo to the bi-partisan group of governors who have crafted this initiative! This bill will enable our states to have billions of dollars in funding to improve transportation, reduce traffic, improve public health by reducing air pollution, and hundreds of millions in avoided climate-related costs. Thank you for your leadership.