Recently at the Heroes of Sustainability Award Gala for the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Mayor of Denver Michael Hancock spoke about issues surrounding sustainability in this beautiful state we call home. While his understanding of, and commitment to, these issues are impressive, the questions is “Ok but now what?”
Mayor Hancock has already taken amazing strides towards local and regional sustainability by creating a Denver Office of Sustainability within the Mayor’s Office itself. This, among other things, has resulted in Denver’s 2020 Sustainability Goals which provide a roadmap to protect and manage our existing basic resources for the long term. According to Denver’s Office of Sustainability, the 2020 Sustainability Goals focus on 12 resource areas and set goals for the City and County of Denver as well as the Front Range community at-large. Those resource areas are: air quality, climate change, energy, food, health, housing, land use, materials, mobility, water quantity and quality, and workforce.
But what does this all mean on the ground? Given that transportation, urban health, traffic, recreation (walking and biking), parking and carbon emissions (to just name a few issues) are all wrapped up in one big, complex, and intertwined system, we here at eGo CarShare have been curious to see how tackling mobility in one of the hottest growth markets in the nation would pan out in practice.
Well, there’s no more wondering how “cool” the Mayor is! Mayor Hancock has once again proven his resolution to environmental and economic sustainability by announcing his administration’s commitment to doubling the share of commutes by transit, biking, and walking by 2030! But how does Denver plan on getting there? By investing in a $2 billion “mobility action plan” that aims to reduce the share of commutes by solo driving from 73 percent to 50 percent over the same period.
To see this put into action around mobility is refreshing to say the least. Here at eGo, we are excited and look forward to engaging with the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability to see how this will play out and what eGo CarShare can do to help . Read more about this on Streetsblog.