Mayor Agran’s Plan to Make Irvine the “Greenest City in America”

Mayor Larry Agran is on a mission to make Irvine the “Greenest City in America.” Last year, Irvine was ranked among the top ten greenest cities in the nation. But Mayor Agran is pressing forward with a number of projects to make the City even greener.

Irvine’s park system is currently ranked the best in California and the second best in the entire nation, according to the Trust for Public Land. The Mayor’s team is now developing an Urban Forest Master Plan that will add thousands more trees which will be aesthetically pleasing while helping to provide shade, clean the air, and cool our City.

The Mayor also wants the City to establish a large-scale solar rooftop and battery storage program to help Irvine residents significantly save on their monthly electricity bills and reduce our overall City carbon footprint.

In 1988, Mayor Agran worked alongside his longtime friend and Council colleague Mary Ann Gaido to have the City set aside more than 10,000 acres of wilderness that became Irvine’s voter-approved Open Space Preserve. Now, the Mayor is looking for new opportunities for the City to acquire more open space.

Just two years ago, Agran joined forces with several hundred North Irvine residents to successfully shut down the City’s largest industrial polluter — the All American Asphalt plant. In its place, the City is now establishing a new 600-acre “Gateway Preserve” that will include a network of hiking and biking trails for Irvine families to enjoy.

The City is also expanding the Jeffrey Open Space Trail, with a new pedestrian and bicycle bridge now under construction that will soon span the entire I-5 Freeway. When it opens next summer, the Jeffrey Open Space Trail bicycle and pedestrian bridge will connect 3.5 miles of the existing trail to an additional 1.5 miles more being added south of the freeway. A recent extension of the Hicks Canyon Trail also added a tunnel under Portola at the north end of the trail. Once the segment of the Jeffrey Open Space Trail north of Portola is complete, the Hicks Canyon Trail will connect to it via a tunnel under Jeffrey.

In a further commitment to the “greening” of Irvine, the City Council recently approved a phased citywide expansion of the free Irvine CONNECT shuttle bus transit system. This is expected to dramatically improve transportation, especially for Irvine youth and seniors, while also decreasing traffic and carbon emissions throughout the City.

Mayor Agran recently said: “Let’s face it, traffic is Irvine’s No. 1 problem. Expanding the Irvine CONNECT transit system, beginning this fall, should provide some relief. Addressing traffic issues not only gets cars off the road, it improves air quality, and moves us closer to our goal of becoming America’s greenest city.”