TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

The Sierra Club is sharing the attached 129 comments from our members and supporters in Maine supporting finalizing the Draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). Thank you for helping to design a regional policy to limit climate pollution from motor fuels and invest in a modern, clean, transportation future. The evidence is clear: the more we limit pollution from motor fuels, the more jobs are created, the more the economy grows, and the more lives we save. Please sign on to the agreement to implement a strong, equitable regional climate protection policy through TCI. Invest in the communities that have suffered the most from burning gasoline and have the least access to clean transportation options. Stop sending our hard-earned dollars out of the state to oil companies, and choose to create jobs, grow the economy, and save lives for families and businesses. Thank you.

The Sierra Club is sharing the attached 631 comments from our members and supporters in New Jersey supporting finalizing the Draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). Thank you for helping to design a regional policy to limit climate pollution from motor fuels and invest in a modern, clean, transportation future. The evidence is clear: the more we limit pollution from motor fuels, the more jobs are created, the more the economy grows, and the more lives we save. Please sign on to the agreement to implement a strong, equitable regional climate protection policy through TCI. Invest in the communities that have suffered the most from burning gasoline and have the least access to clean transportation options. Stop sending our hard-earned dollars out of the state to oil companies, and choose to create jobs, grow the economy, and save lives for families and businesses. Thank you.

The Sierra Club is sharing the attached 487 comments from our members and supporters in Pennsylvania supporting finalizing the Draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). Thank you for helping to design a regional policy to limit climate pollution from motor fuels and invest in a modern, clean, transportation future. The evidence is clear: the more we limit pollution from motor fuels, the more jobs are created, the more the economy grows, and the more lives we save. Please sign on to the agreement to implement a strong, equitable regional climate protection policy through TCI. Invest in the communities that have suffered the most from burning gasoline and have the least access to clean transportation options. Stop sending our hard-earned dollars out of the state to oil companies, and choose to create jobs, grow the economy, and save lives for families and businesses. Thank you.

The Sierra Club is sharing the attached 547 comments from our members and supporters in Virginia supporting finalizing the Draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). Thank you for helping to design a regional policy to limit climate pollution from motor fuels and invest in a modern, clean, transportation future. The evidence is clear: the more we limit pollution from motor fuels, the more jobs are created, the more the economy grows, and the more lives we save. Please sign on to the agreement to implement a strong, equitable regional climate protection policy through TCI. Invest in the communities that have suffered the most from burning gasoline and have the least access to clean transportation options. Stop sending our hard-earned dollars out of the state to oil companies, and choose to create jobs, grow the economy, and save lives for families and businesses. Thank you.

The transportation infrastructure is in desperate need of being upgraded. It needs to take in to consideration the ability to support the urban and suburban users, especially the poor, and alternatives to the automobile.

My city has way too many orange alert days for air quality, making it inadvisable to go outside, since I am a senior, one of the “sensitive groups” who are warned to stay inside. But I have to walk my little dog, himself in a sensitive group since he is only 18 pounds.
Much of our ozone and small particulates in Philadelphia come from the transportation sector. I already produce solar electricity on my garage roof, a great source of power for the electric car I will buy when my 16 year old Honda wears out. We have tremendous solar potential here. Every outdoor parking lot could be shaded by solar collectors!
A clean transportation sector is not rocket science. We can do this with available technology.

I vehemently oppose the TCI tax and the manner in which it is being attempted to be implemented.

Below are suggestions regarding how the TCI can accelerate implementation of alternative fuel transportation and reduce GHGs related to traditional transportation (in no particular order):

- Re-allocate portions of funding from traditional road infrastructure projects toward high speed rail, commuter rail, and metro services
- Moratorium on building new gasoline/diesel fuel stations
- Require any new fuleing stations to offset their carbon footprint (including those of their fuel sales)
- Invest in DC Fast Charging stations (rather than level I or II EV infrastructure)
- Charging large transportation reliant businesses a carbon tax (Amazon uses next day delivery...they should have to pay the environmental cost of shipping)
- Offering large fleet reliant businesses incentives for fleet conversion (trucking industry, police, DOT, taxi, pizza delivery, schools, buses)
- Reduce need for single occupancy vehicles by investing in public transportation options in/around population centers without encouraging sprawl (no expansion to areas with low population densities as an example)
- Communities with higher populations of drivers (based on DMV registration data) could have larger % of cost burden for maintaining road infrastructure
- Auto-centric land use patterns should bare larger cost of transportation infrastructure costs (if a community chooses to sprawl, they will have to pay for infrastructure - no subsidizing sprawling land use patterns)
- reserve a larger portion of any carbon related "tax" for public transportation options (rail, EV infrastructure, electric buses, etc.)
- Move away from traditional paving and use recycled plastics as a way to reduce plastic waste and replace traditional petroleum based paving methods with those that re-use existing petroleum in plastics. (keep fossil fuels in the ground).
- All new transportation projects meet carbon sequestration goals associated with that particular project (for example - road projects would require a sequestration technique for every lane mile to offset usage, or expanding transit would need to procure energy from renewable sources, installation if EV infrastructure would require solar+storage or other emission reduction technique like tree planting)
- Lending interest rates for non-GHG reducing transportation projects would be higher
- support projects that reduce VMT

see also: https://www.gbnrtc.org/movingforward2050