Utah community action
The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Utah.
News[edit | edit source]
A Look Inside The Community Rebuilds Model, By Kenny Fallon Jr., thelaststraw.org (Oct 30, 2023)
- Utah on Track to End Homelessness by 2015, December 19, 2013...NationSwell
Community energy[edit | edit source]
Wikipedia: Solar power in Utah has the capacity to provide almost a third of all electricity used in the United States.
Citizens data initiative
Energy Data & Statistics for Utah
Sustainable transport activism[edit | edit source]
Wikipedia: Hiking trails in Utah (category)
Cycling activism[edit | edit source]
Bicycle Collective, Salt Lake Valley - GREENbike Salt Lake City Bike Share
Wikipedia:
- Bike paths in Utah (category)
- Salt Lake City, Cycling: Salt Lake City is widely considered a bicycle-friendly city. In 2010, Salt Lake City was designated as a Silver-level Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists, placing the city in the top 18 bicycling cities in the U.S. with a population of at least 100,000. Many streets in the city have bike lanes, and the city has published a bicycle map. However, off-road biking in the valley has suffered significantly as access to trails and paths has declined with the increase of housing developments and land privatization.
- One popular cycling and walking route is the loop around City Creek Canyon on Bonneville Boulevard. The city has designated the road as one lane only (one-way) for motor vehicles, turning the other lane over to two-way cyclists and pedestrians. City Creek Canyon Road itself is closed to motor vehicles on odd-numbered days during the summer, while bicycles are prohibited on even-numbered days and holidays during the summer.
- Salt Lake City developed the first bicycle priority lanes in the U.S., called "Green Shared Lanes". Transportation Engineer Dan Bergenthal pioneered this design in 2008, placing a 4' wide green band down the middle of a travel lane. Similar designs have since been implemented in Long Beach, California, and Brookline, Massachusetts. These designs are also sometimes known as "super sharrows".
- On 25 September 2010, UTA in partnership with Salt Lake City, the Utah Department of Transportation, the Wasatch Front Regional Council, and the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee, opened a Bicycle Transit Center (BTC) at the Intermodal Hub. The BTC is anticipated to serve multi-modal commuters from TRAX and FrontRunner, as well as providing a secure bicycle parking space for bicycle tourists who want to tour the city on foot or transit.
- In April 2013, Salt Lake City launched a bike share program known as GREENbike. The program allows users to pay $5 per day to access bicycles, with the option of purchasing a weekly or annual pass. As of the launch of the program, there were 10 stations located in the downtown core. In addition to the bike sharing program, eighty businesses in the city participate in the Bicycle Benefits program, which provides discounts to customers who arrive by bicycle.
- As a result of this increasing support, Salt Lake City's on-road bikeway network has grown to encompass 200 lane mi.
Environment quality[edit | edit source]
Utah Department of Environmental Quality
Open spaces[edit | edit source]
About Utah[edit | edit source]
Utah ( YOO-tah, YOO-taw) is a state in the western United States. It is one of the Mountain States, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, and Nevada to the west. In comparison to all the U.S. states and territories, Utah, with a population of just over three million, is the 13th largest by area, the 30th most populous, and the 11th least densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two regions: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which includes the state capital, Salt Lake City, and is home to roughly two-thirds of the population; and Washington County in the southwest, which has approximately 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.
Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups, such as the ancient Puebloans, the Navajo, and the Ute. The first Europeans to arrive – in the mid-16th century – were the Spanish. Because of the region's challenging geography and harsh climate, it only became a peripheral part of New Spain (and later of Mexico). Even while it was Mexican territory, many of the Utah region’s earliest European settlers were from the United States; notable among these were Mormons who were fleeing marginalization and persecution in the United States and arrived via the so-called Mormon Trail. In 1848, after the Mexican–American War, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what later became Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state: in 1896, after it agreed to outlaw polygamy, it was admitted as the 45th state.
