What is your city or town doing to protect your future?
As the next decade approaches us many cities and towns all over the U.S. are being forced to keep up with an increasing population and city size, which is also known as urban sprawl. They are being forced to look at their future to make sure they will have the infrastructure and energy dependency they will need to make sure their communities stay intact and can live a healthy life style. Fort Collins, Colorado is a great example of a city looking into the future. Below are 5 examples of how the city and some of its businesses are on the right track to keep up with its increase in population, energy, consumption and urban sprawl.
1. New Belgium Brewery
One shinning example of a local Fort Collins business that is taking the extra steps to prepare us for the future is New Belgium Brewery. Located on the north end of Fort Collins New Belgium produces 12.6% of its energy on site and diverts 99% of its waste. To add to these accomplishments, they are also a certified B corp. and employee owned. If you want to learn more about New Belgium they have a whole webpage dedicated to sustainability, check it out here!
2. Protected bike lanes
With an increase in population comes an increase in vehicles, and in turn an increase of daily traffic and the emission of greenhouse gasses that practically every car on the road releases. To combat the extra vehicles and emissions, Fort Collins has implemented protected bike lanes on some of the most traveled bike routes around town. If you want more people riding bikes and less people driving, the best way to do this is by making biking a convenience not a hassle.
3. Colorado State University
CSU is a huge part of the community in Fort Collins. With an enrollment of 32,000 students it is important that they work side by side with the City of Fort Collins on working towards a sustainable future. Currently 962 of CSU’s 2,633 courses incorporate sustainability content. To go along with teaching students about sustainability, CSU also has 20 LEED certified building on campus to reduce its own carbon footprint as much as possible. To see more statistics about how CSU is looking out for the future of Fort Collins click here!
4. Max Transit and Transfort
When a cities population is rapidly growing that usually means a certain amount of urban sprawl will begin to take place, and that's exactly what has happened to Fort Collins in the past decade. In order to deal with this issue and once again to reduce the amount of traffic and green house gases produced from single passenger cars, Fort Collins invested heavily in Transfort and especially in the Max transit bus system. The Max bus transports and average of 2,870 daily riders and Transfort as whole transports an impressive 2,611,642 riders every year. If you want to see how else Transfort is helping Fort Collins become more sustainable click here.
5. The City of Fort Collins
The City of Fort Collins is also doing everything it can to reduce its own carbon footprint. The city has adopted the accelerated goal of reducing carbon 80% by 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. They are also trying to recycle or compost 75% of the community’s discards by 2020. Along with those very bold goals, in 2013 Fort Collins received a Platinum designation as a bicycle-friendly community just another example that Fort Collins truly is trying to take this city into the next decade on the right path for a great future.
