Massachusetts Senate Majority Chief Cynthia Stone Creem (D) launched a invoice this yr to create a fee with the objective of lowering the variety of miles pushed by residents of their automobiles due to ‘local weather change’, with an final objective to “scale back the necessity for private automobiles.”
Picture through Cynthia Creem/X May 14, 2025.
The 82-year-old Creem needs the state authorities to promulgate laws that would superb residents for driving an excessive amount of and drive them into driving public transportation, utilizing bikes paths and strolling.
Excerpts from Bill S. 2246:
(b) No metropolitan planning group shall approve a Regional Transportation Plan or Transportation Enchancment Program developed pursuant to 23 CFR Half 450, and the division shall not approve a Statewide Transportation Enchancment Program, except the plan or program, together with any mitigation measures interlinked to particular person tasks throughout the plan or program, supplies an inexpensive pathway to compliance with the greenhouse fuel emissions sublimits for the transportation set pursuant to part 3A of chapter 21N and to the statewide automobiles miles traveled discount targets established by the secretary pursuant to part 81 of this chapter.
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(f) The division might promulgate guidelines or laws for the implementation of this part.
Part 81. (a) To alleviate visitors congestion, enhance air high quality, and promote compliance with the greenhouse fuel emissions limits established pursuant to chapter 21N, the secretary shall, in session with the secretary of financial improvement, the secretary of vitality and environmental affairs, and the secretary of housing and livable communities, set a statewide automobile miles traveled discount objective for the yr 2030 and for each fifth yr thereafter. The automobile miles traveled discount targets shall be included into: (i) the greenhouse fuel emissions sublimits for the transportation sector set pursuant to subsection (b) of part 3A of chapter 21N; and (ii) the roadmap plans revealed pursuant to subsection (b) of part 3 of mentioned chapter 21N.
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The council shall assess and report on methods and plans essential to scale back statewide automobiles miles traveled by the institution of an equitable, interconnected, accessible and dependable community of non-personal automobile transportation choices and thru land use insurance policies that scale back the necessity for private automobiles. The plan shall facilitate: (i) compliance with the greenhouse fuel emissions limits and sublimits set pursuant to chapter 21N of the Common Legal guidelines, with emphasis on compliance with the emissions limits and sublimits set for 2030; (ii) attainment of the numerical benchmarks for automobile miles traveled set pursuant to part 81 of chapter 6C; (iii) the event of compact, walkable neighborhoods; and (iv) development of entry to, and affordability of, non-personal automobile transportation choices.
The evaluation shall embrace, however not be restricted to: (i) the current situation of, and future wants for, non-personal automobile transportation infrastructure and providers, together with, however not restricted to, bicycle paths and lanes; bicycle sharing stations; pedestrian paths; bus, ferry, subway, and practice providers; transportation demand administration applications; and microtransit applications ; (ii) the current standing of, and future wants for, land use insurance policies that scale back the necessity for private automobiles; (iii) options for optimum areas for brand spanking new, expanded or improved non-personal automobile transportation choices in city, suburban and rural areas together with, however not restricted to, low-income and moderate-income communities; (iv) dialogue of applications and insurance policies which will incentivize residents to undertake non-personal automobile transportation choices; (v) dialogue of current and projected future prices and strategies of financing these prices; (viii) suggestions to help native governmental and personal sector officers in increasing entry to non-personal automobile transportation choices and in planning and creating compact, walkable neighborhoods; and (ix) identification and dialogue of present insurance policies and proposals for insurance policies, legal guidelines and regulatory actions which will facilitate reductions in automobile miles traveled.
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance posted a video Friday criticizing Creem’s proposal:
WATCH: Sen. Cynthia Creem says EVs aren’t sufficient—Massachusetts should restrict how far you possibly can drive, too. Her invoice creates a panel to trace your mileage and superb you when you go too far.
She says simply stroll or bike as an alternative.
Textbook excessive, out-of-touch policymaking. #mapoli pic.twitter.com/RgI3OqMTL0
— Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance (@MassFiscal) May 23, 2025
State House News Service reported that at a listening to every week in the past Wednesday, there was some skepticism of Creem’s invoice (excerpt):
Sen. Michael Barrett, the Senate co-chair of the TUE (Telecommunications, Utilities and Vitality) Committee, raised with supporters of Creem’s invoice the query of “whether or not we’re layering too many barely disparate initiatives, one on prime of one other, in a means that’s, in actual fact, going to complicate reasonably than make clear steps that have to be taken.”
Barrett pointed to transportation sector emission sublimits which are presupposed to ratchet down over the approaching decade and necessities for the MBTA to transition its bus fleet to be zero-emitting as examples that “we do have lots of provisions proper now, enacted in both 2021-2022 or 2024, that correlate transportation spending and local weather targets.”
The Lexington Democrat additionally famous what he known as “an unintended and refined bias in opposition to rural Massachusetts,” the place transit choices are much more restricted and other people usually dwell farther from their workplaces.
“I perceive that one can simply think about that EVs, over time, will scale back the variety of polluting automobile miles traveled. However why we’d need to begin to stress Massachusetts to scale back all miles traveled, polluting and non-polluting alike, does increase the query of what somebody is to do in a spot the place one has to journey a protracted distance to a development job or to every other supply of employment,” Barrett mentioned.
