Throughout human history one overarching story has been that as our society became wealthier we traveled more. The reality that our ancestors generally were born, lived and died in the same place with rare opportunities to “see the world” is hard to deny – so is the reality of our world where it is not unusual to find people walking the streets of our cities who woke up that morning on a different continent and rubbing elbows with masses of people who have lived, gone to school and worked in a wide and complex array of places.

But new academic research is suggesting that the upward surge in travel that has become such a feature of our world may have come to an end.

This could be very similar to well documented phenomena of air pollution rising as a society becomes more wealthy but then reaching a point where the relationship between economic activity (or income) flips -   air pollution increasingly declines as wealth/income rises.  This is know as an “inverted U-Shaped Kuznets curve” by economists (who are almost as poetic when they name things as lawyers).  This analysis suggests that as income rises people collectively take action to reduce pollution.  There is some controversy about applying this principle to pollution that is not as visible and obvious – like the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) that is a major cause of global warming, but some scholars believe that as income and wealth rises that emissions of CO2 drop very suddenly after a critical break point under some conditions.

But the possibility that we may have passed a critical “break point” where travel stops growing would be very good news in terms of slowing and reversing global warming given the critical role of the transportation sector in the emissions of these greenhouse gases – and the major role that travel growth plays in driving (pun intended) such emissions.

These trends are not handed down from above though – whenever we choose to build communities where people can walk, bike or even drive short distances to their offices, schools, stores, friends and families who move our world in a positive direction.  And when we build good transit systems that allow us to move around those communities quickly and cleanly everyone benefits.

Question: What’s better than a bike share program in Boston? Answer: A bike share program in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Brookline. And according to this article in yesterday’s Globe, a solution may be closer than we think. Local officials in those areas are exploring the feasibility of this the-more-the-merrier approach,  which would expand Boston’s original bike share proposal, first introduced about two years ago, into a regional program that would serve those additional densely-populated communities just outside the city’s core.

An effective bike share program would serve as a complement to the MBTA, increasing access to hard-to-reach areas not currently served by the T, such as Arlington, Medford, Somerville’s Union Square or Cambridge’s Inman Square, reducing stress on the MBTA system at peak times like during rush hour or following major sporting events (if you’ve ever tried to fight your way onto the green line after a Red Sox game, you know what I’m talking about) and providing yet another alternative to driving, reducing congestion on the city’s roadways.

Cities such as Minneapolis, Denver and Washington, DC already have bike share programs in place–and we should join them. CLF supports a regional bike sharing initiative for Boston and other sensible transportation alternatives that get more New Englanders out of their cars and into their communities, whether that’s on foot or by train, bus or bike.

Learn more about CLF’s work to build livable cities and modernize transportation at clf.org.

Boston’s iconic Longfellow Bridge serves as a poster child for public transit. Every few minutes, the bridge transports Red Line commuters between Boston and Cambridge, affording its passengers a breathtaking view of the Charles River and Boston skyline– and the parallel lanes of bumper-to-bumper vehicle traffic that the speeding train leaves in its wake. While that’s a positive situation for MBTA riders, it’s a dangerous one for the rest of the city’s commuters who don’t cross the bridge by car– cyclists and pedestrians.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Highway Division had released plans to rebuild the historic bridge as is. In May 2010, CLF advocated for an alternative plan that would make the bridge more bike and pedestrian-friendly. In response to CLF’s call to action, MassDOT created the Longfellow Bridge Rehabilitation Task Force, which recently released its recommendations on what alternatives should be included in the project’s Environmental Assessment to submit to the Federal Highway Administration.

Last week, CLF submitted written comments to the Administrator of the Highway Division at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) in response to those recommendations. In a letter to MasDOT Highway Division Administrator Luisa Paiewonsky, CLF explained that to comply with federal and state law, MassDOT should include at least one strong alternative plan for presentation and analysis that retains the current structure of the bridge throughout while altering its traffic pattern so that only one lane exists in both directions with a two-lane release into Charles Circle on the Boston side. Such an alternative would uphold the structural and architectural integrity of the bridge, help the state reach its health and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and improve safety for bikers and pedestrians.

Learn more about what CLF is doing the improve transportation alternatives in communities throughout New England.