State Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem, D-Newton, apparently recognizing resistance to the bill she filed to reduce personal vehicle driving miles in order to meet state climate goals, wants to assuage those concerns of a government intrusion into our daily driving habits.
The legislation, the word-salad named “An Act Aligning the Commonwealth’s Transportation Plan with its Mandates and Goals for Reducing Emissions and Vehicle Miles Traveled,” has drawn criticism for its veiled goal — reining in how many miles we can drive our cars.
Supporters praise the bill for the additional public transportation options it would promote, and for going after what they describe as heavily polluting personal vehicles.
Weren’t we led to believe all those anti-pollution devices like catalytic converters were designed to meet federal auto-emission standards?
“The purpose of the Freedom to Move Act is to ensure that we are investing in all transportation options — both roads and highways and cleaner alternatives like trains and buses — to help align Massachusetts with its climate target,” Stone Creem, told the Boston Herald in a lengthy statement defending her bill.
“It does not in any way limit people’s choices about how to get around. It does not impose fines, penalties, or taxes on drivers. In fact, it gives people more choices.”
However, the ironically coined “Freedom to Move Act “appears to do just the opposite.
Because according to a summary of the legislation, MassDOT would be required to set goals for reducing the distance residents collectively can travel in their personal vehicles.
“The bill would also require MassDOT to set goals for reducing the number of statewide driving miles, which would be considered when EEA sets greenhouse gas emissions limits and sublimits,” the legislation’s summary indicates.
Stone Creem’s bill also would even prohibit MassDOT from approving regional transportation plans or statewide transportation improvement programs if they don’t “provide a reasonable pathway to compliance” with statewide vehicle miles traveled reduction goals set by the transportation secretary.
The bill’s backers, who testified before the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy at a hearing in May, praised the goal of reducing statewide personal driving miles by going after “the largest source of emissions in the Commonwealth.”
Kevin Shannon, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said at the hearing the bill would “fill a necessary gap between our climate goals and the transportation plans the state makes every year.”
Yes, climate goals, that’s the piece of the puzzle previous pushers of this agenda failed to utilize.
It provides a way to reduce car usage that previous legislation lacked.
Back in December 2019, several key House members weighed whether to include an increase in the state’s 24-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax in a transportation revenue bill.
However, state Rep. Thomas Stanley warned his colleagues that over the long term the gas tax wouldn’t meet roadway and public transit needs. Vehicles’ increased fuel-efficiency translates into less gasoline purchased for the same number of miles traveled, thus generating less revenue for the state.
Instead, Stanley suggested lawmakers embrace legislation he filed with Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier for a pilot program to test fees based on the miles people travel rather than the amount of gas used.
That system, often referred to as vehicle miles traveled or VMT, would ensure that Massachusetts would have the funding available to make upgrades to its aging public transit systems and roads and bridges.
However, that initiative reached a legislative dead end.
But now, cleaner engine emissions and heightened fuel efficiency constitute no match against the commonwealth’s stated climate goals.
However, one unlikely ultra-liberal Senate colleague has expressed concern about the bill’s equity.
State Sen. and Committee Co-Chair Michael Barrett said that limiting statewide personal vehicle miles would disproportionately affect those in rural parts of the state.
“I do worry about an unintended and subtle bias against rural Massachusetts,” said Barrett, a Lexington Democrat, who noted people living in that section of state might have longer commuting distances to work.
In her statement to the Herald, Stone Creem acknowledged those concerns, saying her bill allows for “regional flexibility.”
This bill also seems to ignore the substantial change in working habits brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Data from TD Economics, the research and forecasting division of TD Bank Group, reported Boston had a 15.1% commercial vacancy rate in the third quarter of 2025, an 114% increase over pre-COVID 2019.
It highlighted Boston as one of the metro areas that continues to struggle with high vacancies and weak demand.
And a November report by WCVB-TV included a survey by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce of 120 area businesses that found 85% of them have embraced hybrid work models, with most employees in the office only three days a week.
In other words, vehicle miles have already been substantially reduced in Massachusetts over the past few years by the increase in remote workers, not over climate concerns but by a worldwide viral epidemic.
The lack of sufficient mass transportation via regional transit authorities and commuter-rail services in the western part of the state — along with an acknowledgement of the reduced work-related traffic around Greater Boston — should be thoroughly factored into any bill proposing to reduce the vehicle miles traveled by its citizens.