November 14th, 2008 · No Comments

The just-launched Bicenntennial Bikeway Plan, a master bike plan that will add a thousand bike racks and 500 miles of paths and trails to the city by 2028, tops the list of green initiatives in Ohio’s capital. Columbus aspires to become a major biking center in the U.S., seeing bike travel not just as clean and economical, but as a community builder.

“Our bikeways and green paths are what connect us – they tie and bind the region together,” said Chester Jourdan, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission in an announcement on the bike plan. “The Columbus Bicentennial Bikeways Plan is also good for our air quality, helps relieves congestion and enhances our quality of life.”

Another ambitious Columbus program is the city’s GreenSpot website, invented to inform, inspire and recognize the green community. Ohio residents can easily access information on how to go green and see which businesses and community groups are working toward a sustainable future for the city. They can use a unique map of green businesses if they want to patronize green retailers and services

Columbus has green model buildings. The Columbus Chamber of Commerce offices, for instance, are among the first chamber offices in the United States to receive LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) certification.

The city also has been developing a green fleet of city vehicles and won the 2008 Clean Fuel Advocate Award given by Clean Fuels Ohio, which recognizes the cities’ increased use of cleaner American fuels and vehicles and energy-saving transportation technologies.

Additionally, Mayor Coleman’s Green Memo program lays out a detailed plan for making the cities’ air and water cleaner, and is expected to attract new green jobs to the city.

With recent news that 10,000 Ohio jobs will be vanishing from the Wilmington, Ohio area (between Cincinnati and Columbus) due to DHL U.S. Express pulling their shipping business completely out of the US, a green boost to the local economy will be greatly needed in this region.

New Orleans, LA

Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt is garnering much of the green media attention in New Orleans right now, where he’s created a vast rebuilding project called “Make It Right,” which is building 150 affordable, environmentally friendly homes for low-income families in the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the neighborhoods hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. (See architectural drawing, left.)

But the city also is adopting its own cool green initiatives.

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