More information about The Circle-Heights Bike Network and the 'friends' group to which Susan refers can be found here. The map illustrates good routes for cycling in the Heights and University Circle area, and includes information on how to safely cycle/share the road. The friends group looked at a number of ways of improving cycling in the area. It held rides to look at and record road hazards, another for a bike parking inventory (i.e. what commercial districts in the heights/circle already have bike racks and which ones could use a rack), and discussed opportunities to invite the city to think about bicycling as a real and practical way to get around.

Good points, Michael. In bedroom communities like Cleveland Heights, cars and buildings account for the largest chunk of emissions. Actually, the city can do a lot to encourage bicycling as a practical, low cost and very green mode of transportation. Bike lanes or even officially designating bike routes would be one great aspect in a greenhouse gas reduction strategy for suburbs.

Lee Road between Scottsdale and Silsby roads are scheduled to be resurfaced in the next year or two. This is one of the Heights area’s main north-south roads as it acts as a crucial connection between Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.

The current conditions on Lee Road are a serious impediment to getting around by bike. But, planners in both cities have recently opened discussions about reconfiguring Lee Road from its current, inefficient four lanes to two lanes of general traffic with a center turning lane. Planners and bike advocates believe with proper traffic and engineering studies —  and enough encouragement — the cities could also include a bike lane on Lee Road when it's resurfaced.

And, Cleveland Heights is scheduled to receive federal funds for a resurfacing of Warrensville Center Road from Cedar to Mayfield in June 2007. Warrensville is a great opportunity to explore a bike lane as well.

The other big opportunity to reduce greenhouse gasses for communities like Cleveland Heights is in building energy efficiency. With buildings generally accounting for 50 percent of our energy use (and with so many older homes in Cleveland Heights) having the city lead a more aggressive home weatherization campaign, with incentives, seems like it could get the most bang for our buck.

Oh yeah, and I just discovered that NOACA is organizing a carpooling effort to reduce air pollution. It will exchange names and phone numbers to promote carpooling arrangements. Link.

Thanks for the update on Cleveland Heights' Mayor Ed Kelley expressing an interest in signing the city global warming compact. Please post a follow up here with Councilwoman Caplan's response to your request for action.

According to the site where you can check if your city has signed, Cleveland Heights has not signed (yet). But, you're right, one phone call from an interested citizen might get the ball rolling. We'll continue to highlight efforts here if people make a call and want to post what their mayor said in response. 

A courtesy call to your city's mayor to ask if your city has signed the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement is a good idea (a few callers on the same subject might bump it up the list of priorities). Although signing the agreement is more than a verbal commitment. It requires a city to create a plan for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

I tried to link to the Seattle site, and it took me to a video. Could you recheck that link?

It's a good point to raise on the county's new administration building. Of course, they could earn LEED rating points by remediating and adapting the Breuer office tower. 

I changed the link in the article above to the resolution language that cities can use in officially endorsing the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement. I'll put it here as well. It would probably be appropriate to get citizens from within each city to take up the endorsement campaign or petition.

Could GCBL offer a petition for people to sign to urge local mayors to sign the mayoral agreement? It would be a great way to drive traffic to the site to have people sending people here to sign the petition. Invitations could be broadcast by affiliated and/or interested local orgs that have email contact lists. Then we would use the power of each individual's networks to drive the local economy and environment action plan.

I think that however we felt about the film (I saw it in another marketplace), we should take advantage of whatever opportunities it may offer. If there is a way to use technology to improve the environment, I'm all for it.