State ponders role in getting people to drive less

Yahoo

15-05-2025

BOSTON (SHNS) – The idea of aligning the state's transportation plans with its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including by making a specific plan to decrease the amount Bay Staters drive, was met Wednesday with skepticism from a key senator who worried it might actually complicate matters and be especially burdensome for rural parts of Massachusetts.
'Its purpose is to ensure that our multi-million dollar transportation plans, broadly speaking, get us where we need to go on climate change and reducing vehicle miles. Colorado and Minnesota have adopted similar requirements, which have successfully reoriented their transportation plans toward a responsible balance of investment in highway, public transit and active transportation projects,' Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem said of her legislation. 'We could do the same thing here together.'
The Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee on Wednesday heard the bill (S 2246) Creem filed to require the Department of Transportation to set goals for reducing the number of statewide driving miles, which would then be part of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs' consideration of sector-specific emission limits. The legislation would also stand up an interagency coordinating council to come up with 'a whole-of-government plan to reduce vehicle miles traveled and increase access to transportation options other than personal vehicles,' according to Creem's summary.
Transportation is the sector that accounts for the greatest share of Massachusetts' greenhouse gas emissions, and Creem said the state's strategy for reducing those emissions 'has largely, although not exclusively, focused on electric vehicles.' Supporters said the environmental benefits of improved fuel economy and electric vehicle adoptions have largely been offset by a mostly steady rise in vehicle miles traveled; even though cars pollute less per mile, Americans are driving more miles than in previous decades.
Creem said electric vehicles 'are certainly a major piece of the puzzle,' but cautioned against over-reliance on any single decarbonization strategy for the transportation sector.
'With the Trump administration rolling back vehicle emission standards and withholding funds from EV charging programs, and with congressional Republicans looking to repeal EV tax credits and derail state-level EV rules, now is the time to pursue new strategies, additional strategies, for reducing transportation emissions,' the Senate majority leader said.
Two weeks ago, TUE Committee House Chair Rep. Mark Cusack said policymakers are reevaluating all of Massachusetts' climate and emissions mandates, plans and goals in light of changes in federal energy policy.
Massachusetts state government has committed to reducing carbon emissions by at least 50% compared to 1990 baselines by 2030, by at least 75% by 2040 and by at least 85% by 2050, with tag-along policies to get the state to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. The state also has numerous other mandates on the books, including around things like electric vehicles, and its long-range climate and energy plans acknowledge the need to reduce commuter vehicle miles driven.
Sen. Michael Barrett, the Senate co-chair of the TUE Committee, raised with supporters of Creem's bill the question of 'whether we're layering too many slightly disparate initiatives, one on top of another, in a way that is, in fact, going to complicate rather than clarify steps that need to be taken.'
Barrett pointed to transportation sector emission sublimits that are supposed to ratchet down over the coming decade and requirements for the MBTA to transition its bus fleet to be zero-emitting as examples that 'we do have a lot of provisions right now, enacted in either 2021-2022 or 2024, that correlate transportation spending and climate goals.'
The Lexington Democrat also noted what he called 'an unintended and subtle bias against rural Massachusetts,' where transit options are far more limited and people often live further from their workplaces.
'I understand that one can easily imagine that EVs, over time, will reduce the number of polluting vehicle miles traveled. But why we would want to start to pressure Massachusetts to reduce all miles traveled, polluting and non-polluting alike, does raise the question of what someone is to do in a place where one has to travel a long distance to a construction job or to any other source of employment,' Barrett said.
The senator added later, 'One of the questions I'm going to carry with me away from today's hearing is whether we really want to focus on reducing vehicle miles traveled, or whether that's too crude and somewhat off the point, and whether instead we want to reduce internal combustion engine vehicle miles traveled.'
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