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Billion Dollar Boondoggle
Golden continues to work hard to promote responsible and effective transportation solutions in the northwest part of the Denver Metro region. Golden opposes plans to construct a new tolled highway across the region because it will do little to solve the area's congestion and safety challenges, it will harm the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge and the area's open space, and it will require local governments to sign congestion guarantees to private investors, guaranteeing that public roads becoming increasingly congested in order to force local residents onto the private toll highway. Golden strongly supports improvements to the existing roads that fix congestion, solve safety problems, preserve open space, and protect local communities.
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Golden Sustainability Initiative
The Golden City Council launched the Golden Sustainability Initiative early in 2007 with a community forum with more than 200 participants. Later that year, seven Community Working Groups proposed adoption of ambitious ten-year sustainability goals and provided more than 100 recommendations for programs the community and the city could undertake to achieve those goals. City Council appointed the city's first Sustainability Advisory Board - charged with guiding our progress toward our ten-year goals - earlier in 2008. The city also just hired the community's first Sustainability Director.
Our objectives in 2008 included establishing the advisory board, getting them started, and hiring a dedicated staffer for the Sustainability Initiative. We've already accomplished all of this. By this fall, the advisory board is expected to present City Council with a set of short-term recommendations and a plan for the next several year's worth of work. City Council should immediately begin to tackle those recommendations.
In addition, city staff continue their assertive efforts to reduce energy use, increase the use of renewable energy, and otherwise improve the city's environmental footprint. Recent accomplishments include converting all of the city's traffic lights to highly efficient LED bulbs, beginning to convert to biodiesel as a fuel source for the city's trucks, reducing the average fuel economy of the city's entire vehicle fleet and expanding the city's recycling center.
Review Golden's Sustainability Initiative Goals
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Golden's Community Investment Priorities
This is sometimes also called the 2009-2010 Budget, but it amounts to the same thing: how should Golden invest the community's resources to best provide what the community needs and wants? City Council will adopt a new two-year budget late this year, and we'll spend the time between now and then discussing projected revenues, capital investment needs, and how to balance the many important community priorities. If you have opinions about how the city should invest the community's resources, please weigh in by email, letter, or in person at a City Council meeting.
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Transportation
We currently have two citizen task forces focusing on key transportation issues: walkabilty and bicycle-friendliness. The Walkability Task Force and the Bicycle Master Plan Update Task Force are expected to present their recommendations to City Council. Their reports will probably include recommendations for prioritizing capital investments as well as policy changes, both of which should improve the ability of our residents and visitors to walk and bike in town.
The city also continues to improve our bike and pedestrian trail networks. With the cleanup along the south side of Clear Creek now complete, we received grant funding from the state and are working with the Colorado School of Mines to build a trail along Creek Creek connecting the History Park with the trail connections near Highway 6. We've also finalized agreements with Lakewood and Jefferson County to begin building a trail connecting our southernmost neighborhoods - Golden Hills and Golden Heights, both on the south side of I-70 and 6th Avenue - with the main part of Golden.
Golden continues working closely with Jefferson County and the Regional Transportation District on the new light rail station. The station, at the Jefferson County building, is the end-of-line for the West Corridor and will connect Golden to downtown Denver and the rest of the light rail system. The city has also begun working with the Colorado School of Mines to begin planning a new local bus system connecting the light rail station, downtown Golden, the campus, student housing, and other parts of Golden. Our goal is to ensure that this bus system is operational by the time the light rail station opens in 2012.
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