Those of us who cover EVs all knew the day would come. At some point, left-leaning and well-meaning environmental activists would decide that the rate of EV adoption was too slow, and simply decide we can’t drive anymore. At least as much as we need to or wish to. In Massachusetts, that day has come.
Cynthia Stone Creem represents Middlesex and Norfolk counties in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is 82 years of age and lives in one of the wealthiest districts in one of America’s richest states. The towns she represents include Newton, Brookline, and Wellesley. Her new bill, called Senate No. 2246, wants to “align the Commonwealth’s transportation plans with its mandates for reduced emissions.” The bill would specifically work “toward reducing the miles traveled in the state” by private vehicle owners. As one media outlet put it, she wants to set limits on personal vehicle use.
Senator Stone Creem is extremely popular in her district. She won re-election with a 99% margin of the voters in 2024. While that may seem like the sort of vote tally one might find in, say, a Russian presidential election, she ran unopposed. Still, about 1,000 residents opted to choose “write-in” candidates.
WWLP quoted Senator Stone Creem as saying on this subject, “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.” She also proposed to create a new council that would be tasked with instituting “...a whole-of-government plan to reduce vehicle miles traveled and increase access to transportation options other than personal vehicles.” WWLP also reported that 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.
Senator Stone Creem’s district is part of the inner ring of wealthy Boston suburbs. Sen. Michael Barrett, the Senate co-chair of the TUE Committee, commented on her plan, suggesting that it may be out of touch with the rest of Massachusetts, the majority of which is rural by any measurement. He said,
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?
At the Facebook New England Electric Auto Association Group, member Craig Wedge said it more plainly, commenting, “I'm all for helping the environment, this is insanity.”
We checked out Senator Stone Creem’s recent activity via her Facebook page and found her happily standing with other dignitaries at the state’s most recent Commuter Rail station opening. That rail system serves much of eastern Massachusetts. Its trains are pulled almost entirely by diesel-gulping fossil-fuel powered engines with fuel tanks the size of bathtubs.
What’s your opinion? Were EVs a distraction all along? Do blue state leaders like Senator Stone Creem have a different goal? One that limits your personal travel. Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
Top of page image created by Grok.
John Goreham is a long-standing member of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
