CitiesGoGreen - January 2009 - (Page 24) Light rail transit is just one part of the Metropolitan Council’s 2030 Transportation Policy Plan. The goal is to double transit ridership by 2030, slow the growth in traffic congestion and improve mobility for everyone. Strategies for growing transit ridership include: • adding new express bus routes, limited-stop routes and park-and-ride lots; • funding enhancements such as bus-only shoulders, ramp meter bypasses and signal priority that give buses travel-time advantages in mixed traffic; and • developing a network of rail and bus “transitways, ” with mode choices based on a careful cost-benefit analysis. farm,” said Rybak. “It’s healthier, it uses less energy, and it grows home-based businesses like sustainable farms, small processors for grass-fed beef, and farmer’s markets that focus on local produce.” Currently in the planning stage, Prest expects the initiatives will focus not only on food grown near the city but on supporting city residents in growing their own as well. The mayor sees his outspoken support for sustainability issues as an important catalyst for such developments. “I got elected saying that sustainability was going to be one of my three big goals,” he said. “That was seen as very flaky in 2001, but because of it people knew that sustainability was a hot button for the mayor. It allowed city employees to bring forward risky and sometimes dangerous ideas, knowing that I would back them. It meant that innovators would bring ideas to us, and I think it also helped empower the citizens to come up with new ideas as well. “People knew that I had run on these issues. They knew that I was one of the original seven signers of the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. They saw me out at scores of community events, and celebrating some new sustainable idea in the neighborhoods. I think that gave people in the community, and also within city government, the sense that if they had a good idea they’d get some backing from the person of the top.” One of those good ideas is the city’s Climate Change Micro-Grant program (see Small Grants with a Big Impact on page 27). In its second year, the program uses small grants of $1000 to $10,000 to encourage creative thinking and innovative grassroots approaches that target reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The mayor also emphasizes how often he is out cheerleading for people in the community who are doing great work, “whether that be Linden Hills Power and Light, a restaurant serving local food, a groundbreaking bike-share program, or students at a middle school who are using reusable water bottles out of the drinking environmentalists to form a Green Jobs task force. Their goal is to promote green manufacturing technologies in the area, as detailed in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Making It Green (pdf ) report. Now that sustainability is ensconced as a performance measure in City Hall it is likely to outlast Rybak’s own tenure as mayor, and he is delighted about that. “All of this work is about fusing this into “We’re in a period of time in which you can either be depressed by unsolvable wars and economic meltdowns and the climate in peril, or you can be part of what is an incredibly exciting period, in which we are developing new green jobs and having citizens realize that a single act of theirs can be part of this larger movement.” — Mayor Rybak fountain,” he said. “We’re in a period of time in which you can either be depressed by unsolvable wars and economic meltdowns and the climate in peril, or you can be part of what is an incredibly exciting period, in which we are developing new green jobs and having citizens realize that a single act of theirs can be part of this larger movement.” Rybak has an answer, too, for people who say that focusing on sustainability should come second to economic considerations. “I believe passionately that sustainability is exactly what is going to spur the green economy that will get us out of the financial mess we’re in right now,” he says. To that end, Minneapolis recently launched a Green Jobs initiative, bringing together people who are starting green companies with labor and the DNA of the city, so that it can operate whether the mayor is supportive or not,” he said. “I grew up in a city with one of the greatest natural environments of any place in the world. I was lucky enough to ride my bike down tree-lined streets and swim in clean lakes and breathe wonderful air in great parks. And that should be a value that everybody should support.” v Lia Ayley is a freelance writer and contributing editor for CitiesGoGreen. She can be reached at (360) 303-0882 or at lia@openaccess.org. 24 January 2009 http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/sustainability/docs/MakingItGreenReport_2008.pdf http://http:// http://www.CitiesGoGreen.com
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