City Sustainability Initiatives - Denver

The city of Denver, CO is definitely trying to do its part when it comes to environmental stewardship and sustainability. On Denver's city website, they provide a page listing links of various environmental programs and organizations. This is the link:

http://www.denvergov.org/LivinginDenver/Environment/tabid/435532/Default.aspx

On this page you will find many resources including the city's free recycling programs, information on various sustainability initiatives, public transportation, environmental health and the city's bicycling programs. Among these resources provided, two of the sustainability initiatives really stood out.

1) Greenprint Denver (http://www.greenprintdenver.org/)

• Greenprint Denver provides citizens with information regarding Denver's pledge to environmental sustainability. The focus of this project is seven-fold, touching on energy, air & emissions, water, land, transportation, waste, and community. Within each of these categories, you can find information relating to Denver's goals, programs, policy, and achievements as they relate to each individual topic. For example, the new house bill (2010-1001) relating to our country's energy policy increases the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard to 30% by 2020 which makes it the second highest in the country. Many goals are outlined here, such as the installation of solar panels on city facilities, the replacement of incandescent traffic light bulbs to LED reducing energy consumption by 85%, and many more. This information is regularly updated, displaying the city's achievements over time. Information is also provided to the average consumer on how each person can assist in making a difference. 

2) Denver Living Streets (http://www.denverlivingstreets.com/)

• Living Streets is an incredibly fascinating program; one I have never really seen before. The main purpose of this sustainability initiative is to maximize the efficiency of a given roadway's capacity to support more people and more trips utilizing any mode of transportation. This allows for a unique roadway/pedestrian/public transit integration. Much like the tactic observed in the urban planning of Curitiba, Brazil, Denver is now employing a unique transportation method of its own: a multimodal transportation plan. While this project is still in an exploratory phase, integration can be observed around the city. In a survey distributed by the city, you can understand how they are trying to promote less driving among residents. Two of the important figures can be seen below:

When the questions from the first graph above were asked to people involved in the living streets program, the results were much different:
Drive Alone: 27%
Bike: 23%
Transit: 19% (14% bus, 5% rail)
Walk: 12%
Other: 19%
Of course, these results are not statistically relevant because they were not taken from a "random" sample. It would be interesting to see how these results would vary if a similar study were conducted here in Kalamazoo.