Green Denver: Part 2
Since the 90’s Denver has had one of the largest “Green Fleets” in the country. Currently more than 43% of the entire fleet is powered by alternative sources including 1,021 biodiesel, 138 hybrids, 136 CNG, 103 gas/CNG dual fuels, 74 electric, and 29 function on electric.
In 1990 the Denver City Council approved an alternative fuels ordinance to promote cleaner air. The following year the city ran a pioneering study to test a fuel called Hythane, a mixture of hydrogen and compressed natural gas. In 2004 the city launched a pilot program to test roughly 50,000 gallons of B20 biodiesel in 60 of the city’s standard diesel vehicles. Biodiesel is an alternative fuel made from renewable natural resources such as new or recycled vegetable oils or animal fats which has been show to substantially reduce carbon monoxide.
Denver’s Green Fleet policies have been used as a model nationally and internationally and have been adopted by the International Council of Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI) as part of its Cities for Climate Protection Campaign. The campaigns goal is to decrease vehicle emissions and is also promoted by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
The cities green attitude seems to have become infectious with the private sector. Last year Denver’s largest cab company, Metro Taxi, began converting its vehicles to eco-friendly Toyota Prius. Earlier this year Yellow Cab also started to introduce hybrids to its fleet.
Probably the most visible of Denver’s Green Fleet is the free 16th Street Shuttle. Thirty six ultra low emission hybrid electric buses run as often as every 90 seconds on the pedestrian mall’s 1 ¼ mile downtown strip. This unique service sees a daily ridership exceeding 50,000 people.
Metro Denver’s Fas Tracks project, approved by voters in seven Colorado counties in 2004 and managed by the Regional Transportation District is an enormous project in and of itself. The $4.7 billion, 12 year plan will link Denver’s suburbs with mass transit through 119 miles of new light and commuter rail, 18 miles of bus service, and 21,000 new parking spaces at the rail and bus stations.
This expansive network of stations will create opportunities for people to live or work near public transportation. The expansion is the single largest rail transportation build-out in U.S. history and will make Metro Denver one of the top five regions in the country with fixed rail.
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Comment Options
STEEL
The irony here:
Massive sprawl based (and un-green) growth has allowed Denver the wealth to afford things like this while massive sprawl based decline in Buffalo has left the area too poor to push forward these types of initiatives.
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tjhorner1
Ok, not to get too far off the subject here, but, I was in Denver last month, and noticed something very successful. Their 16th Street pedestrian mall. 16th street mall is a pedestrian mall in downtown Denver, similar in every way to our own pedestrian mall in downtown Buffalo. The lone exception is that Denver utilizes gas powered buses as opposed to light rail for public transportation on the mall. In both cities, vehicle traffic is not permitted, and the entire mall is a fare free zone, meaning of course, that all rides are free.
Well…there was one more difference that I noticed between the Denver's ped mall, and our own. People and business! There were people everywhere. I stayed in a hotel on 16th Street, on a Tuesday. I noticed thousands of people on the mall. at 10 am, noon, 2pm, 5pm, and even at 11pm the streets still had hundreds of people of all ages and creed. The free buses were loaded with people at all hours as well. There were businesses lining the 20 blocks from the start of the mall, all the way to the end. Many were restaurants, packed with people. There was an outdoor retail center, loaded with shops, bars and a movie theater, all doing quite well.
The reason that I bring this up, is that, as we all know, our leaders within the City of Buffalo would like to spend tens of millions of dollars to remove our own downtown pedestrian mall. There is an unfounded common belief that the mall killed downtown Main St, and downtown Buffalo as a whole. If this were true, wouldn’t downtown Denver, and its mall be in the same shape as ours? My point is, it wasn't, and still isn't our light rail line, or the pedestrian mall that has killed downtown. Wouldn't we be much better served to utilize the millions of dollars planed to tear out our mall, and invest instead, back into downtown, and Main St? Imagine…seed money for building rehabilitation and conversion? Tax credits to make doing business downtown more affordable? Dollars for more police patrols? $50 million can go a long way into the rebuilding of downtown Buffalo!
It is arguable as to whether our pedestrian mall is an asset, however, where is the evidence that it is a detriment? The ped malls work in Minneapolis as well. In the 1980s, Denver was a cold, industrial city, much like Buffalo. In the past 20 years, they have reinvented themselves. It's time to do the same in Buffalo. We laid the foundation for that in the 70s, with the beginning of light rail and a pedestrian mall. Isn't now the time to finish what we started, as opposed to trashing it, and starting from scratch? We need to let our "leaders" know what we think. Maybe they should take a discovery trip to Denver and Minneapolis, and see how they made their malls work, before wasting not only the millions it will take to tear ours out, but the hundreds of millions that we spent to put it in.
Or, maybe I'm way off base...
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RaChaCha
Impressive. And what is My Fair City planning to do while all this is going on--? To demolish and fill in our old subway tunnel downtown, which could otherwise easily serve as the nucleus/incubator for a regional light rail transit system. Ugggh.
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