TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

I am very concerned about climate change and believe that a big way to help save our environment is to cut down or eliminate emissions from transportation.

Dear Regional Leaders,
TCI will reduce transportation greenhouse gases, which is important because that will help mitigate global warming and improve our air quality. With the fees collected from fossil fuel imports much needed improvements in our public transit system will be addressed including safe and reliable rail and bus service, electric vehicle infrastructure, and complete streets for bicycles and pedestrians. Those without choices have to drive and the resultant fuel consumption and traffic congestion damages our environment, public health, and quality of life.
Thank you, Governor Lamont for being involved in the regional design process; please have Connecticut formally sign on to TCI.
Please TCI leaders, sign on to the most aggressive greenhouse gas emissions cap.
I would also ask that a TCI policy has equity and investment in overburdened and under served communities as a first and foremost priority.

Sincerely, Hugh Rogers

Transportation is the largest source of air pollution in the region, and we need to build a modern, clean, safe, and accessible transportation system for the 21st century. The more we limit pollution from motor fuels, the more jobs we create, the more the economy grows, the healthier our air becomes, and the more lives we save. Connecticut should join TCI to fund better transportation infrastructure, reduce traffic, and make my community a cleaner, safer place to live.

We need an improved transportation system to reduce noise and pollution, especially in our cities, but everywhere. We need the improved health that cleaner air and water will bring. We need the improved quality of life that quieter streets will bring. Most importantly, we need the reduction of global warming that using much less fossil fuel for transportation can bring.

Only a major shift can bring the degree of change necessary. I urge you to develop more rapid transit, and make it powered electrically, so green energy can be the source, not fossil fuels. The amount of wind and solar power generation must be increased rapidly, along with the distribution system to move the power to where it's needed. The distributed nature of renewable sources means some of the generation will be nearer the suburban and rural places where it is used, which should improve the reliability of the power grid and lower overall cost.

I urge more charging locations be built for electric street vehicles. I urge electrifying all rail operations in the region, with the possible exception of branch lines with less than one train a day. Electric railways have been practical for a century or more. We dismantled some electrical rail systems in the Rocky Mountains, instead of adding more miles to them. Diesel locomotives seemed the cheaper, more flexible choice, but have helped bring us to the current, unsustainable situation we are in. It's time our transportation systems were modernized to be as good or better than the Europeans' and Japanese'!

Thank you

I'm enthusiastic and excited about the regional transportation initiative being formulated by my state and others in the northeast corridor. This is long overdue, and our environmental challenges, and climate change in particular, can't wait. This is urgent, requires investment and sacrifice, and needs to happen now! Thank you for your determination to make this project a reality.

It's high time we get serious about saving this planet. Transportation can be made cleaner with a little vision, courage and determination. It can wait no longer!

Thank you to the Initiative for working towards a clean transportation future. It is most urgently needed!
Please also consider the following suggestions:
- Electrification of school bus fleets. Cities and school districts, including in colder climate areas, are demonstrating that this is economically viable. Financial incentives and/or creative financing options are needed for school districts as this will affect the health of not only future but current students
- instead of cap-and-trade, please consider Fee-and-Dividend systems like the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividen Act (Initiative supported by Citizens’ Climate Lobby), that would take care of the worries of low/ fixed income regional residents about raised prices
- with all due respect, even the most modern diesel is still not clean. Neither diesel nor natural gas should be part of any long term plan for transportation
- more public transportation along our main traffic axis. Daily commutes to/ from/ between larger cities need to become mostly public, more affordable and more convenient than individual traffic

Please keep working on this Initiative, keep integrating as much public input and scientific data as possible, publicize all findings, and urge regional legislations to implement asap! Thank you.

If the world is to be habitable for our grandchildren, transportation will have to be transformed. So will many other energy-dependent areas of human life, but transportation may be the easiest to address. Let's get started on the changes now.

Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) states are developing a regional policy for low-carbon transportation following the December 18, 2018, statement by nine states and Washington DC committing to:

“…design a regional low-carbon transportation policy proposal that would cap and reduce carbon emissions from the combustion of transportation fuels through a cap-and-invest program or other pricing mechanism… [and]… to complete the policy development process within one year, after which each jurisdiction will decide whether to adopt and implement the policy.”

We have run out of time. Such a plan is beyond mandatory. There is no question in the mind of any reasonable person that Connecticut should be part of this initiative, and should be in a leadership role.