TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Use clean alternative powered buses, e,g, electric or hydrogen, and set aside lanes for these vehicles. Also, develop more public parking outside cities to facilitate the use of these buses.

I support TCI, except for the use of "cap and trade": it would be better to 1) switch immediately to a Renewable Energy-based economy, 2)fine polluters and seize their extraction equipment, 3)and and allow Big Oil to do no more buisness then to convert their remaining stock to lubricants in order toto fund the conversion of non lubricants to atomic constituents.

I really believe we need to reduce pollution from transportation. I request that maine formally join the plan to reduce emissions. Please ensure that the policy includes strong component of equity by prioritizing clean investments in areas overburdened by pollution and/or for those who don't have access. I appreciate the bipartisan nature of this project, moving us forward while the federal government takes us backward

One of the ways to combat climate change is to improve public transportation. We should do that.

I am a mother, an educator, an energy activist in my community of Greenfield, MA. What an important step it is to get the Governors of our East Coast states to work together to change our transportation habits. It will take a very concerted effort. Among other things, encouraging more dense development with fewer outlying housing complexes is essential. In the case of Western Massachusetts, our terrain is very rural and public transportation systems are not adequate. We are a forgotten segment in transportation planning for our state. We cannot continue to rely on buses that use fossil fuel, and we do not have the infrastructure or the funds to change to electric vehicles at this time. Thank you for focusing on remedies that get people out of individual cars and onto buses, trains, subways. Every day our vehicles are creating more and more health issues down the road.
Yours,
Carol Letson, citizen of Greenfield, MA, and a member of Greening Greenfield, a citizen organization working to reduce energy use in our city.

Dear Decision Makers,
Your lives are important. You have an opportunity to improve the future. Will you accept this challenge?
If nothing is done to correct the carbon emissions from the combustion of transportation fuels now when will it be done?
Please do not hesitate to correct the past and improve the future.
Thank you for your time to seriously consider my comments. Sincerely yours, DM

The Transportation Climate Initiative is necessary but not sufficient policy to address the challenge of climate change mitigation.
All economic sectors must be represented to make real climate progress. Comprehensive carbon reduction measures are ready to implement in the next year-decade time frame. The political will must follow the public will to act on climate protection.

I am very concerned about the 2022 start, gradually phased implementation of TCI, and lagging outcome of consumer behavior change.

No time can be spared, with the climate bomb detonated in every part of the world. We can't escape the manifold and epic changes already baked into our physical, chemical and biological systems by excess carbon and greenhouse gas accumulation to date, much less buffer todays and tomorrows additional emissions.

At a minimum MA must adopt statewide comprehensive carbon pricing; targeted emission reductions to net zero asap; and no burning of carbon to supply "renewable" electricity. Even as MA and region negotiate a transportation agreement, all minds are simultaneously called to brainstorm and implement cross-sector emissions reduction.

TCI must not lull our regional authorities into complacency. In each jurisdiction we must act in concert with TCI planning, boldly and ambitiously, without delay. The time is past to dither. Legislation to bond this cost, rather than make direct investment in real time, is absurd and unconscienable. Blackrock financial just committed their trillions to sustainable investment; so must public investment be redirected. Business as usual cedes to business with future welfare included in the calculus.

We lead as individuals, communities, businesses and government. No waiting time exists. All exertion to reduce this highest risk to all, this existential threat to life in this geologic epoch, is belated. The house is on fire. Each day brings a new sense of emergency, in all parts of this imperiled life support system. We're in the ICU and heading into hospice.

TCI and climate protection needs to care for the vulnerable. An estimated billion animals died in Australia, over these past months of unprecedented change amidst a politically reckless, reeking, wreckage of landscape, habitat, and civilization. No corporate energy monetary profits can be justified, nor can their assets afford to redeem or compensate for THIS LOSS ALONE, the massive scale of wildfire extinction and destruction. The shame is what could have happened, what our kids future might have been, had leaders listened to scientists rather than campaign financier propagandists, since 1988. Stop politically blockading and braking clean energy progress.

The Massachusetts Joint TUE committee heard H.2810 Act to Promote Green Infrastructure and Reduce Carbon Emissions on Tuesday 1/14/20. This is the gold standard for equitable carbon pricing for TCI to follow. It addressed buildings carbon emissions, not just transportation. We need to move on both sectors, as we accelerate non-carbon emitting electricity generation, and decelerate conventional energy production, transmission, and market monopolization.

Please act on all aspects of greenhouse gas mitigation, before all is lost, here and everywhere.

Climate change is in my opinion the number one threat to mankind in the next few centuries. We need to get off fossil fuels, and quickly. Clean public transportation with high speed rail, electric buses, and electric vehicles for the more rural areas is the answer.

The time is long overdue that the US begin to provide mass transit and long distance transit to its citizens. The fires in California and Australia are proof that this needs to be done now. Stop the support of fossil fuels, stop building roads, put money into rail and support the mass transit and we citizens will use it. The so-called greatest nation in the world must start thinking about the population as a whole instead of millions of individuals going their own ways.