Zuehlke Recognized by Sustain Charlotte
(by Charlotte Latin School)
Countless thanks and congratulations to Science Department Chair, compost connoisseur, recycling ringleader, and trash trailblazer – our own Bill Zuehlke – who was nominated for Outstanding Leader in the 2016 Sustain Charlotte Awards. Nominations are made by members of the public; this year marks the fifth annual awards. According to Sustain Charlotte, "What makes this event unique is that it brings together sustainability leaders from a range of disciplines and sectors: for profit, nonprofit, and government."
The nonprofit group Sustain Charlotte announced its annual award winners in April at an evening event coupled with an Earth Day celebration. The group recognized individuals, local nonprofits, government agencies and businesses for their work in advancing Sustain Charlotte's Charlotte 2030 sustainability plan, which was launched in 2010.
Read more here.
Pantsless Bike Ride to Promote Bicycle Safety and Awareness
(by Katie Toussaint, CharlotteFive)
If you saw the pantsless people riding bikes along the Charlotte Rail Trail on Saturday, May 21, rest assured, you were not hallucinating. The staff of Unknown Brewing Co. in South End actually organized this event, and an open invitation to the community — and the media — to join. The brewery and its Unknown Bike and Brew team partnered with Good Bottle Co., Queen City Bicycles and 24 Hours of Booty to create Charlotte’s first-annual pantsless bike ride.
The event was intended to promote bicycle safety and awareness, Sustain Charlotte, 24 Hours of Booty and, naturally, a darn good time.
Read more here.
Bikers ride 'pantless' around Charlotte for a cause
(by Fox46)
"The Unknown Brewery held its first annual No Pants Bike Ride in Charlotte on Saturday. Almost 50 bikers rode pantless around the city to raise awareness of Sustain Charlotte's efforts to improve bike lanes in the area and show support for a more livable, bike-able and sustainable Charlotte."
Read more here.
New Campaign To Build Protected Bike Lanes Through Uptown Charlotte
(by Katherine Miele, Charlotte Stories)
"Local nonprofit group Sustain Charlotte recently announced a new city-wide campaign to build a protected bike lane through Uptown by the end of 2016. The most needed route seems to be from East to West from the Little Sugar Creek Greenway to the east, to the Irwin Creek greenway through Frazier Park to the west...They have launched an online petition and set up a website to explain the effort and inform Charlotteans what they can do to help."
Read more here.
There's a new push for protected bike lanes across Uptown
(by Andrew Dunn, Charlotte Agenda)
Sure, people do bike to work Uptown, but it’s not particularly easy. Uptown is home to a large concentration of Charlotte’s most dangerous intersections.
Jordan Moore, the bicycle program director of Sustain Charlotte, is behind a movement to get the city to commit to protected bike lanes across Uptown — and he’s got a pretty convincing argument.
Protected lanes give people a lot more comfort in traveling by bike and some cities that have tried it have had a huge increase in the percentage of people commuting that way.
Click here to read the Charlotte Agenda article about this effort!
How would you rebuild South Tryon Street? CDOT wants your input
(by Megan Fencil, Charlotte Five)
The Charlotte Department of Transportation recently invited Charlotteans to take a closer look at the streets in South End. Not a casual glance as we rush past on our way to work or to the gym, but a slow and deliberate study of the entire pedestrian experience.
The walking tours covered four portions of streets including northern and southern stretches of South Tryon Street and South Boulevard from just south of uptown to Remount Road. CDOT is collecting citizen input about these streets as part of a larger study aimed at improving safety and overall functioning for all users including pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and motorists.
Click here to read more about what Sustain Charlotte's Education + Outreach Director, Meg Fencil, learned during this walking tour.
Charlotte must not go backward on recycling at apartments
(by Meg Fencil of Sustain Charlotte, via a Special to the Observer)
Charlotte’s City Council and Solid Waste Services are discussing whether to eliminate municipal trash and recycling service to apartment complexes. This is a step in the wrong direction because it would result in fewer Charlotteans being able to recycle at home and would move the city further from its own stated goal of diverting waste from the landfill. The ability to recycle at home should be a right, not a privilege.
The 2013 Multi-family, Small Business, and Rate Structure Review report commissioned by the city shows that it’s not the norm for cities across the nation to provide recycling service to apartment complexes. But Charlotte lacks the incentives or, in some cases, requirements to recycle that some of the peer cities evaluated in the consultant’s report have.
Click here to read more.
Sustain Charlotte names award winners
(by Bruce Henderson, The Charlotte Observer)
The nonprofit group Sustain Charlotte announced its annual award winners at an Earth Day celebration Thursday night in Wesley Heights.
The group recognized local nonprofits, government agencies and businesses for their work in advancing Sustain Charlotte’s Charlotte 2030 sustainability plan, which was launched in 2010.
Three winners were recognized in each of nine categories.
Click here to read more.
Why isn’t Earth Day a mass celebration in Charlotte?
(by Katie Toussaint, CharlotteFive)
Why hasn’t Earth Day become a mass beer celebration like St. Patrick’s Day, or worthy of excessive candy consumption and house parties like Halloween? There’s hope.
Shannon Binns, Executive Director of Sustain Charlotte, told me a city/county partnership is putting on an event Saturday, April 23 in First Ward Park, which Sustain Charlotte will be part of. More than 20 organizations will be onsite to contribute to the festivities, including music and an acrobat show, from 11:30 a.m.-7 p.m.
“Many large companies in the area (like Belk and UTC Aerospace) hold Earth Day events for their employees this week,” Binns said. “It would be great if we came together in a bigger way — maybe an Earth Day parade — but hopefully this year’s event in First Ward Park will be the start of something big. Why? According to the Earth Day Network, ‘more than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.’ Our shared reliance on the Earth is the one thing that unites us all.”
Click here to read more.
‘A City Of People On Bicycles’: Sustain Charlotte's Big Vision
(by Michael Andersen, People for Bikes)
A vision of grand transformation isn't the only way to improve a city. But it certainly can help.
Sustain Charlotte, a group pushing for a new east-west protected bike lane through Uptown in North Carolina's largest city, has no shortage of vision.
"When I travel and people find out I’m from Charlotte I want their first response to be, 'Oh? Do you ride your bike everywhere!?'" bicycle program director Jordan Moore wrote last week in the Charlotte Agenda.
"In my mind, I see Charlotte being a city of people on bicycles," he told WSOC-TV this week. "It is the Copenhagen of the South."
Sustain Charlotte has prepared a petition, hashtag campaign and video series about Charlotte residents who get around by bike. Here's Charles Langston, who gets to work and college by bike:
Click here to read more and view the featured videos!