Massachusetts Senate Bill 2246 is pure bureaucratic dishonesty. Not the crude kind that lies outright, but the more refined kind that tells the truth in fragments while carefully avoiding the conclusion those fragments inevitably produce.
The bill does not say regulators will cap how many miles residents may drive. It does not mention personal mileage limits, odometer tracking, or fines for “excessive” driving. Supporters will cling to that omission and declare the criticism hysterical.
That stated defense depends on pretending modern regulation still works through blunt commands rather than structural coercion.
Senate Bill 2246 is designed to reduce driving. Not emissions as a side effect. Not congestion. Not inefficiency. Driving itself. The title admits as much: the goal is “reducing emissions and vehicle miles traveled.” Vehicle miles traveled—VMT—is the obsession that runs through the bill like a fault line.
The method is simple and effective. Instead of telling individuals they may not drive, the bill ensures that the system they rely on no longer supports driving in the first place.
Section 80 prohibits metropolitan planning organizations from approving transportation plans unless they provide “a reasonable pathway” to compliance with statewide vehicle miles traveled reduction goals. Read that carefully. Road projects are no longer judged by whether they improve safety, relieve congestion, or accommodate population growth. They are judged by whether they reduce driving. If a project allows people to move more efficiently but increases total miles driven, it fails the test.
The bill then requires “vehicle miles traveled impact assessments” for projects, including estimates of the “net change in vehicle miles traveled” over a 20-year period. These assessments are compliance filters. Once VMT becomes a regulatory metric, it becomes a veto. If the number goes up, the project is in trouble. If it goes down, it passes—regardless of whether it actually serves the public.
To deal with projects that increase driving, the bill lists acceptable “mitigation measures.” The list reads like a greatest-hits album of demand suppression: transit expansion, parking cost adjustments, elimination of parking requirements, land-use densification, transportation demand management.
None of these ban driving. They just make it more expensive, less convenient, and less viable.
This is how control works now. You do not outlaw behavior. You engineer the environment so the behavior becomes impractical.
Section 81 takes the next step by requiring the Secretary of Transportation to set statewide vehicle miles traveled reduction goals for 2030 and every five years thereafter. These are not aspirational targets. They are embedded into greenhouse gas sublimits and binding “roadmap plans.” Once those numbers are written down, failure to meet them becomes a political and bureaucratic crisis. Agencies then scramble to push the numbers down by any means available.
The bill offers no limiting principle on those means.
An intergovernmental council is created to “implement a vehicle miles traveled reduction plan” through “non-personal vehicle transportation options” and “land use policies that reduce the need for personal vehicles.” The council is further instructed to identify “policies, laws and regulatory actions” that may facilitate reductions in vehicle miles traveled.
That language is not cautious. It is deliberately expansive. The legislature sets the goal and hands future regulators a blank check.
Defenders will say this is not about restricting freedom because no one is forced to give up their car. That argument is either naïve or disingenuous. When roads are not expanded, parking is priced out of reach, neighborhoods are redesigned, and alternatives are subsidized while driving infrastructure is starved, the outcome is predetermined. People drive less not because they freely choose to, but because the system has been reconfigured against them.
The bill briefly gestures at public hearings, including in areas with limited transit access. That is simply a formality. Hearings do not change numerical targets. They do not override compliance mandates. They exist to legitimize decisions already made.
What is never addressed is the assumption underlying the entire bill: that reducing vehicle miles traveled is inherently good. Driving is treated as a pathology rather than a reflection of economic reality, geography, family obligations, and work. Rural residents, tradespeople, caregivers, and anyone outside dense urban cores are treated as planning inconveniences to be managed away.
The bill’s defenders focus obsessively on what it does not say. That is the wrong place to look. Modern governance does not announce its most controversial outcomes in plain language. It embeds them in metrics, planning criteria, and conditional approvals.
Senate Bill 2246 does not need to authorize personal mileage caps. It achieves the same result by making driving an increasingly disfavored activity at every level of infrastructure and land-use decision-making. It does not ration miles directly. It rations opportunity.
That distinction is intentional. Explicit mileage limits would provoke backlash. Planning “alignment” sounds technical, boring, and harmless. But once vehicle miles traveled becomes a legally enforced target, personal mobility becomes collateral damage.
The bill avoids saying what it is doing because saying it would expose the reality: a transportation system redesigned not around how people live, but around what planners wish people would stop doing.
One of the tenets of the left is that government knows best. About everything.
Same with commuter rail lines and HOV lanes – Back in the days when most all office work was performed downtown, those made some logical sense. But those days were gone 30 years ago, yet government seems that they remain a good idea.
Work from home means trains are not needed. Good thing nobody’s spending on massive rail projects.
California enters the chat…
So we can do away with highways too?
Perhaps we should do away with warmists too?
Only if you want to live a life locked in a backward, enclosed commune with one overlord telling everyone what to do.
That seems to be your ideal situation…. The one you strive for.
But will still be on the bottom rung of even that society.
So we all have to live in the room we are born and you need a leave pass to go anywhere?
Fortunately there are many more of us that will make sure that never happens.
Trains are not solely a commuter entity. They can be used at during off-peak hours and at weekends for leisure, they can be used by tourists. Do you really want a life where you spend your entire life within 10 miles of your home?
In California HOV lanes are becoming toll lanes. The concept of ‘freeways’ is dying.
Yes.
Boulder Colorado has been following the Mass model for years. Traffic is funneled to some streets and it’s impeded on others. On top of that, they cut back on maintenance to the busiest roads, so one has to play dodge pothole.
Yes, exactly. Building crowded high rise apartment buildings with no allowance for parking, hence forcing use of bicycle or bus. Government knows best
In BC every unit in a high rise condo has to have two assigned parking spaces. My high rise has is over 330 ft tall and has 180 units.
Unfortunately, in Boulder that is not the case…..
Nor in Oslo Norway. A cap on the number of parking spaces per commercial building – MAXIMUM 1 parking space per 1000 sqm. But also a demand of a MINIMUM of 2,5 bicycle parking spots per 100 sqm. There is 50cm of snow outside just now. You know, the thing of the past that children would never see again.
Does the Bill include information on what reduction in CO2 emissions will be achieved and their impact on global warming? Does it present any estimates on what drivers are likely to do to circumvent the objectives?
Of course not. ALL efforts to reduce atmospheric CO2 have failed. ALL OF THEM, EVERYWHERE.
That’s the track record. Live with it.
If you make driving somewhere slower and less efficient…
… you increase CO2 emissions
Ah! And the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) is born again! (It was RGGI for cars, unless all have forgotten…..) Old wine in a new bottle.
Ah, Steve Haner, good one!!
If you vote red and enjoy the absolute freedoms afforded to all Americans, why would you choose to live in a blue state like Massachusetts?
Personally, I can’t afford to leave. I’d prefer to live in the arid west- it would be great for my lifetime sinus problems. For others, I don’t know- I think they just swallow whatever propaganda comes out of Bah-stin. And ironically, the state considers itself the most sophisticated place on the planet. Bah-stin thinks its the Athens of the Western Hemisphere. In Bah-stin, a starter home will cost you half a million bucks.
Joe, there is a huge range in house prices in the West. For example, take a look at the Ridgecrest CA real estate market. If I wasn’t bound by family, I’d be out in Nevada/Idaho/Wyoming/Utah/Arizona somewhere.
Many who do have a choice move north to New Hampshire. All things considered it’s a pretty nice place to live, although the southern part is getting somewhat congested in some areas. And you have to not mind snow.
I used to travel to Keene on business. A center of ultra-precision machining development, I went there for various purposes. Also, over to Townsend (Janos Optics – Sidewinder) over in Vermont. After my first experience driving out of and back into Boston, I found I always needed to do some business at PerkinElmer down in Connecticut, so I would fly in and out of Hartford. Easy going small airport, hop on the 91 for an easy going 2 hour drive in four states (so small!) to Keene.
The real estate numbers need updating.
(half million was circa 2007)
I did say “starter home”- I meant starter shack. 🙂
Maybe a tear-down starter shack. 😆
Looking for a new place? Central Washington State has a dry climate with seasonal cold and summer heat. Electricity costs are low, while gasoline (tax) is high. I’ll guess houses are less costly – east of the Cascades – than in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, WA politics are weighted by the “blues” in the Puget Sound area. Idaho is just 4 hours east of me for those that need that relief.
I lived in Eastern WA in the mid-90s. People were complaining about the invasion of California’s then. Wouldn’t want to be there now, total capture by the Eco-Nazis.
That’s true of western Washington state, but not of eastern Washington state.
Here in eastern Washington, we are the minority of the state’s residents. But our local politicians do their best to keep the insane dictates of the west siders off our backs, at least as much as they can get away with.
Tough spot to be in, Joseph. I wish you well in hanging in there!
I’m OK- have low SS income but no debts, a nice house, a car and a truck, a nice savings- and good health. Nothing else much matters- even here in Wokeachusetts. And weed is legal here. 🙂
I hate to appear ignorant, but is Senate Bill 2246 open to amendment down the line?
Because if that is the case – and I suspect it is – the fact that the bill does not mention personal mileage limits does not prevent them being inserted at a future date after the dust has settled.
Call it a placeholder.
This is how the 15 minute city stuff started. A planter across a road here and a road there, and another one over there etc. That’s why the Covid years were the golden age – they could install these things knowing people were imprisoned at home.
Now, it’s not quite so easy
Green-led council installs LTNs at 3am under police protection
Cover of darkness used after Bristol residents opposed to the roadblocks had previously protested by lying in front of machinery. – Daily Telegraph
Douglas Adams, again.
With the gaining of wisdom that favours a few, bureaucrats will realise that they have a choice. They can create a workspace telling others what they can do, to their benefit; or telling others what they cannot do, facing growing dissatisfaction.
The big example just now is from President Trump. He is a “what you can do” leader. Bureaucrats might benefit from studying his success in various topics.
The car topic, though, has particular difficulties. Many drivers become attached to their cars like they are attached to their children. It follows that they resent bureaucratic interference with the relationship. But, it is now quite evident that there are other people who simply hate cars. They are too immature to contain and manage their hate. They love devices like speed humps and sometimes are found in jobs like buying them for an agency and watching them proliferate. What to do?
Resist. Find ways to express your unwillingness to have killjoys regulating you. Identify them, study them, find inconsistencies in their work, get them censured. It will only get worse every passing year if you do not expend effort to create a better system where crazies do not call the shots. Geoff S
In a free country you wake up in the morning and say: “what should I do today?” In most countries you wake up and say: “what can I do today”?
Wokeachusetts!
mass folks ( or some term for them) voted for this. repeatedly. glad i left so many years ago.
You will have nothing and you will be happy.
We’re half way there.
I remember back in my college days the city government wanted to keep Austin just as it was, zero growth, so their brilliant plan was to not build any more roads – well Austin growth has exploded and has the worst traffic in the nation – wrt Mass. they import LNG from the middle East and heat their homes with heating oil because they don’t want cheap natural gas from Penn et al, delivered in pipelines (oh the horrors) – the stupidity of elected leaders is sometimes just unbelievable
Do firetrucks and cement trucks get a free pass on CO2 emissions?
How about trash trucks? Police vehicles?
Not only those, but street maintenance trucks also.
In the meantime these sanctimonious pipsqueaks fly to every swanky corner of the earth to attend conferences where they pat each other on the back about how effective they are at crushing their respective peasants.
peasants?
No.
Deplorables.
The French Laundry crowd
After MA makes travel inconvenient, what happens to the supply chain?
Railway-launched drones?
Elect morons, get crazy government. Who could have seen that coming? Sorry, Massachusetts. You did this to yourselves, so actually not sorry. We’ll watch your predictable descent into madness with morbid curiosity. Sane people, sell while your property is still worth something and move to a state with Republicans in charge.
I just looked up MA net migration stats. Net outmigration of residents, being more than adequately replaced by inmigration of foreign immigrants.
Or is that illegal aliens?
It would be complete if it had Mamdani come up once a month and give the voters/drivers a pep talk.
He’s busy ordering bidets for the Gracie Mansion (residency for NYC mayor)
Well. It’s a democracy.
So was Venezuela. Then the residents elected Chavez. And after a short period of time, the ballot choices were pretty much nonexistant. I suppose one can say the same about pretty much nonexistant choices in MA.
You can vote in Socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.
The bill instructs the Secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to develop a series of statewide vehicle-miles traveled reduction goals for the years 2030, 2035, 2040, 2045 and 2050. This is to be done in cooperation with other state agencies which are now under a state-legislated mandate to greatly reduce Massachusetts’ greenhouse gas emissions.
The vehicle miles driven reduction goals the Secretary eventually publishes must support, and be in full alignment with, the GHG reduction mandates included in other MA state laws. The miles driven goals must also be in full alignment with the GHG reduction plans now being developed and implemented by other MA state government agencies.
De facto rationing of gasoline would be a key element of any program designed to reduce MA’s vehicle miles driven. Let’s note that in World War II, the American public was mostly on board with the government’s energy and commodity rationing programs. Except for gasoline. Fathers would sell their first born child for a tank of gasoline.
The onus is on the administrative branch of the Massachusetts state government to take those steps needed for the state’s citizens to come into compliance with previously legislated Net Zero targets. These state agencies have the responsibility for determining the Net Zero implementation specifics, and will therefore be taking the blame for any adverse public reactions which might occur.
OK, what happens if MA state agencies don’t come up with a comprehensive, fully integrated Net Zero implementation plan, including a reduction in vehicle miles driven, one which fully aligns with Massachusetts environmental law?
As has happened in New York state, the MA state agencies will be sued, and millions of dollars will be spent by these state agencies and by the environmental NGO’s playing a legal game of chicken designed to enrich the lawyers and the consultants working each side of the litigation process.
It looks like something a follower of Ralph Nader might write.
I don’t really understand the problem. MA elected these people right? Then MA citizens must want these types of initiatives to be thrust upon them.
That’s what “democracy” is all about right?
A people always gets the government it deserves.
Not quite.
A people always gets the government they vote for.
How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving.
What should you do when a politician says, “Trust me.” Grab your wallet and run like hell.
I would say it depends upon the politician.
No, it doesn’t. How can you say that after the exposure of so much election fraud in the blue states.
Because the citizens of the blue states tolerate (and often participate in) the election fraud. They absolutely deserve the state governments they vote for.
So what about federal elections? What did we in the red states do in response to the obvious election fraud in 2020? Nothing. Some protested on Jan 6 which resulted in the Dems accusing them of insurrection and arresting people, holding them in jail for months or years with no trials and what did we do? Nothing.
Tolerating corruption is virtually the same as being corrupt, and if we tolerate it, we deserve everything we get as a result.
A people ALWAYS gets the government it deserves.
If I travel to Massachusetts and rent a car, how will the VMT be applied to my use of that rental car? Or will rental car agencies wither and die?
So glad I left Massachusetts in 1972. Been back once on business, but before it got truly crazy.
Looks just like a plan to shift the modal split to better transportation methods And support the building of infrastructure for it. Oh no, more bike lanes and support for public transport. The horror!
Oh no. You got that right. People who want to reduce your standard of living are never your friends.
Restricting your rights again by forcing you to ride a bike or ride a bus. Oh no.
Forced to ride a bicycle in a Massachusetts winter = population reduction !!
Socialism is always about the agenda…
.. NEVER ABOUT THE PEOPLE !
It’s the goal to make alternatives more attractive to reduce car usage. Nobody is restricting your car. You are being scared into compliance again.
Alternatives have always been there. People have been weighing the attractiveness of those alternatives for decades.
The problem is people are making choices that the elites don’t like so they need to restrict those people’s rights. The elites’ rights won’t be impacted one bit. They never are. They will enjoy all of their freedoms at the expense of everyone else. Then the elites will blow smoke up the people’s arses when things don’t turn out as hoped for.
Blue state politicians rely heavily on low income voters to keep their jobs. These folks might turn on the elites, particularly if a politician comes along and promises to give things back that were taken by elitists.
That is not a good planning by definition … it has a singular goal ignoring everything else.
You have apparently not been outside of Route 128, or in the Berkshires.
They aren’t using support plan they are using force .. you don’t get to argue pros and cons like good planning decisions should.
why would any politician anywhere want to reduce driving?
I want to drive more. See the USA in your Chevrolet.
You are a free man. Apparently Mass has few of such.
Because lowering car traffic in urban areas is increasing quality of life for citizens.
They don’t need a law, they can do that now.
The Canadian government tried similar efforts during the past decade by spending $115.4 billion on public transport between 2016 and ’25 hoping to change public commuting habits and getting them out of their cars in general. During that decade Statistics Canada revealed that public transit use actually fell from 12.6% of all commutes to 11.9%. Meanwhile active transportation in the form of bike lanes or walkways also fell from 6.8% of commutes to 6.2%. The result was that today private vehicles account for 80.9% of all commutes vs. 79.4% in 2016. In addition, further studies show that the average commuting time by public transit in 2025 was 44.1 minutes, while by private vehicle it was 24.7, almost twice as long. What taxpayers find particularly galling about the whole issue is that all levels of governments diverted too much money from normal road maintenance to fund these rapid transit initiatives for which there has been only limited demand since people still much prefer the comfort, convenience and safety of private transport to any saving-the-planet initiatives. And as usual this is the result when politicians, bureaucrats, academics and climate alarmists get to decide on policies and expenditures without properly consulting and surveying consumers and taxpayers in the first place.
What can I say, we are being governed by liars and cheats. Lying and cheating is not okay especially by government. We absolutely must create ways to hold these monsters accountable. They make me sick.
The Evil Ones, also known as the Democrats, still seem to be in charge of big areas of America.