One
of my stops while road tripping from Oregon to Georgia last month was in Salt
Lake City, Utah. Being from Portland, I will often brag about the advanced
measures taken to improve the sustainability of our city. For example, Portland
regularly tops the Huffington Post’s list of Most Bicycle-Friendly Cities and
Greenest Cities in the U.S., and I’ve never failed to inform people of these
facts. Hence, when I arrived in SLC and noticed the GREENbike stations all
around the downtown area, I felt slightly taken aback. Portland hadn’t thought
of this first?
The
non-profit GREENbike program is simple yet genius. It boasts 20 stations around
the downtown SLC area that allow commuters to pay a small fee in order to ride
a bike to work, school, the grocery store, etc. Once you arrive at a station
near your destination, one simply re-racks the bike and goes on their way. Plus,
GREENbike is the only bike-sharing program that “measures the actual
distance traveled on each ride and keeps track of the calories you’ve burned
and the carbon emissions you’ve prevented” (greenbikeslc.org). All
of this information is stored on each user’s personal GREENbike web page. Convenient, affordable, clean, and green!
And the best part is that it is “powered by the ultimate alternative fuel: you”
(greenbikeslc.org).
In 2008, the United States was exceeded
only by China in carbon emissions. Solutions such as GREENbike, which has begun
catching on in numerous U.S. cities, will play a vital role in not only
reducing emissions, but also communicating the urgent need for change to
citizens.
More power to the bikers!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFJGfN6OlJQ
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