Global Warming Solutions News

As the new home of MASSPIRG's environmental work, Environment Massachusetts can be contacted regarding this news release. 

Report Compares Global Warming Pollution from Commuters in Commonwealth’s 351 Towns

Report summary: Commuting is responsible for more than a quarter of all vehicle travel and is a significant contributor to global warming. The "Driving Global Warming" reports released today in five New England states use US Census Bureau survey data to show that commuters living in far-away suburbs making long-distance commutes make a disproportionately large contribution to global warming. By contrast, cities and towns with compact development patterns and real transportation alternatives produce less global warming pollution per worker. The reports include state-specific recommendations for ways to reduce global warming pollution from commuting, including ways to improve public transportation, encourage carpooling and other low-emission transportation options, and promote more compact development. The reports are available online at www.newenglandclimate.org/drivingglobalwarming.

BOSTON—For the first time, Massachusetts residents and town officials can see what their local commuting patterns mean for global warming. A research report released today uses US Census data to rank the 351 cities and towns of Massachusetts in terms of global warming pollution from commuting.

The town-by-town rankings underscore long-standing concern that the growth of suburban employment and the explosion of “exurban” residential development in formerly rural areas of the state pose major challenges to the state’s efforts to reduce global warming emissions. Denser cities like Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, where people tend to live closer to their workplace, come out on top, while farther suburbs like Plymouth, Marshfield and Townsend have the highest levels of per-worker commuting-related global warming pollution.

The report fingers single-passenger commutes, sprawling development, and poor transportation options for contributing to the growing global warming problem.

“These patterns combined with poor fuel economy in our cars makes transportation the biggest and fastest-growing contributor to global warming,” said Evan Feinman, MASSPIRG Energy Associate. “Any meaningful effort to address global warming must include forward-thinking transportation and smart growth solutions.”

The report makes eight policy recommendations that will help the state and region to get a handle on the transportation sector’s contribution to global warming pollution:

1. Maintain and increase funding for the already successful MBTA network – focusing on reasonable fares and solutions to parking crunches at commuter rail stations.
2. Promote transit connectivity, including a well-designed “Urban Ring” link and the Red-Blue Line Connector.
3. Encourage mixed-used, dense development around transit stations and improve service to “edge cities,” like Braintree and Quincy.
4. Hold suburban workplaces accountable for the emissions they generate – promoting models like ridesharing and transit subsidy programs.
5. Extend the regional transit network to capture long-distance commuters, including interstate commuters.
6. Put the brakes on exurban development by increasing the amount of affordable housing in the Boston metropolitan core and requiring sprawling developments to pay for their own, expensive infrastructure.
7. Encourage mixed-use development, live-near-work, and telecommuting.
8. Adopt policies that encourage more efficient cars and less single-passenger trips. Examples of policies are requiring that businesses offer fuel-saving tires and moving towards calculating auto insurance rates by the mile.

“With the cost of gas where it is and our state’s open space being devoured by new developments, these were already sensible steps to take,” said Brian Thurber, Clean Water Action Energy Coordinator. “Now we can more clearly see the environmental and public health costs of inaction, so we must move forward with these policies.”

“If we adopt most of these recommendations, and stay on track to cut power plant pollution through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, then we’ll be heading toward meeting our global warming pollution reduction goals,” said Thurber.

Commuting is directly responsible for five to eight percent of the state’s carbon dioxide emissions. And, the report’s authors argue, decisions that influence commuting—such as where to live and where to work—influence the trips people make for other purposes as well.

Other findings of the report include:

*The average commuter living in parts of the South Shore and in north-central Massachusetts produces three to four times more carbon dioxide from his or her daily commute than the average commuter living in Boston.

*Commuters traveling to workplaces in the Interstate 495 belt produce significantly more emissions than those traveling to workplaces in Boston and nearby towns.

*Increasing residential population density, shifting more commuting trips to transit, and encouraging workers to live near their place of work can reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transportation.