What to know
As a park and recreation professional, you can influence community health and increase physical activity by providing and promoting safe, equitable, and inclusive access to parks, trails, recreation areas, and green spaces.
Overview
People who have more access to green environments, such as parks and trails, tend to walk and be more physically active than those with limited access. The closer people live to a park and the safer they feel in the park, the more likely they are to walk or bike there and use it for physical activity.
However, less than half of people in the United States live within half a mile of a park. Even fewer people live in a community that has both safe streets for walking and access to places for physical activity.
Parks and trails that are well-designed offer many benefits. They provide a place where people can be physically active to reduce stress, which can improve their mental health. They also provide a place where neighbors can meet, which improves community connections.
Parks can provide environmental benefits by reducing air and water pollution and mitigating urban heat islands. They help people reduce their risk of illness and injury by providing safe spaces to play and exercise away from busy streets and commercial zones.
Heat island defined
What you can do
You can use the following strategies to encourage physical activity in your community.
Community design
Design communities that support safe and easy places for people to walk, bike, wheelchair roll, and do other physical activities.
Work with a local coalition to locate and improve parks, trails, and recreational facilities near homes, schools, worksites, and other places where people regularly spend time. Consider using mapping tools to assess the location and quality of current parks (see Resources below).
Work with communities for their input on ways to create or improve local recreation areas and green spaces. Use welcoming designs that represent all community members. Consider design elements like walking loops to promote activity, benches where people can take breaks, or shade for cooling and sun shelter.
Increase access points to recreation areas and green spaces or locate them along public rights of way so they are more accessible to community members.
Work closely with local planning and transportation departments to build and maintain sidewalks, crosswalks, bike racks, bike paths, and shade trees, as well as routes within and between parks, trails, and other key destinations.
Work with local planning and transportation departments to update city policies to include goals designed to increase access to park, trails, and recreational facilities. For example, a city might require that new developments include green space.
Work with community partners and municipal departments to set up shared-use agreements to increase public access to places to be physically active. These may include school yards, municipal building grounds, or university pools and training facilities.
Consider closing parks to vehicles and opening streets to pedestrians in and around parks.
Promote access for everyone
Promote equitable programs and policies in parks that make it safe and easy for residents to be physically active, regardless of their age, race, income, ability, or disability.
Offer inclusive programs that are based on the needs of the community and address barriers, including physical limitations, safety concerns, cultural preferences, and costs.
Promote equitable open streets and play streets to provide people with more spaces to be active.
Partner with local organizations to bring inclusive community programs to existing parks, trails, and green spaces. Focus resources in areas with populations that lack access to parks or other safe places to be physically active.
Educate residents
Teach people about the benefits of physical activity and places to be active.
Provide wayfinding signs to help people find safe places to be active. These signs should include information about accessibility for people with mobility or other limitations.
Use low-cost removable materials and equipment to create pop-up examples showing how traffic calming devices can slow traffic along routes to parks. Get feedback from the community on ways to make permanent changes to improve park access and facilities.
What other communities are doing
These groups are using effective strategies to increase physical activity in their communities.
Connecting Neighborhoods by Trails in Maryland
Baltimore's 35-mile trail system provides connections to more than 60 neighborhoods. Collaborations between community members, city agencies, and nonprofit organizations and a focus on equitable trail creation resulted in safe walking and biking infrastructure around the city. For example, partners closed a trail gap and connected South Baltimore with the rest of the city.
Open Streets in Kansas
Local partners sponsored a community event that temporarily closed a 4-mile stretch of streets in downtown Wichita to cars and opened it to pedestrians. Residents could walk, bike, or roll to downtown businesses, artwork, and historical markers. The event also built community connections by giving people a fun way to socialize and be physically active. An exit survey of local businesses and participants reported record sales and support for future open street events.
Safe Routes to Parks in Arkansas
In Little Rock, Interstate 630 separates some neighborhoods from War Memorial Park, which features safe places to be physically active. Residents in these neighborhoods are primarily people with lower incomes and Black or African American persons. Their lack of park access creates a racial and class divide in the city. The Central Arkansas Library System and Little Rock Parks and Recreation worked with residents to create a protected pedestrian and bicycle path as part of a month-long demonstration project. This work set the foundation for a more permanent change and similar projects in other communities.
Kiwanis Methow Park in Washington
The South Wenatchee community in the city of Wenatchee has a large multi-generational population of Latino people who work in fields. Residents lack many of the amenities that other parts of the city enjoy, including safe green spaces. Nonprofit groups worked with community leaders and residents to build support for renovating Kiwanis Methow Park, a 1.26-acre park built in the 1930s. This collaborative approach resulted in a quality park with improved soccer fields and a pavilion for cultural events and health services that reflects the priorities of the community. Local residents also created a group called the Parque Padrinos (Park Godfathers in English), who host events, conduct outreach, and advocate for ongoing improvements.
Outdoor Recreation Planning in New Mexico
In Santa Fe, a Community Health Profile highlighted the need for better infrastructure for transportation and outdoor recreation, especially for the southern part of the city. City officials worked with the National Park Service to create the profile. City leaders, partners, and community members use this document to plan for more equitable access to parks and recreational spaces in Santa Fe.
Resources
Overarching
National Physical Activity Plan: Community Recreation, Fitness and Parks Sector
Provides policy and programmatic recommendations to increase physical activity. It includes strategies and tactics that communities, organizations, and individuals in the community recreation, fitness, and parks sectors can use to support physically active lifestyles.
Parks, Trails, and Health Workbook
How to include public health factors in the development of a park or trail.
Putting the "Safe" in Safe Routes to Parks: Improving Personal Safety from Crime and Violence to Promote Park Access
Includes examples of ways communities have successfully improved park safety.
Toolkits and guides
Community engagement
Community Engagement Resource Guide
Roadmap for using equitable and inclusive strategies to plan, design, build, and maintain park projects and plans. It includes an internal assessment tool, community engagement strategies, and an evaluation framework.
Planning and implementation
Complete Parks Playbook
Guide for assessing a community's parks system. It can be used by anyone interested in using parks to promote health. It explains the elements of a complete parks system, gives additional resources for implementing each element, and highlights community examples.
Creating Equity-Based System Master Plans
Helps users focus on multiple benefits and gain support from partners and stakeholders across different sectors.
Creating Parks and Public Spaces for People of All Ages: A Step-by-Step Guide
Helps leaders collect data, evaluate opportunities, and generate ideas about how to increase the quality and quantity of parks and outdoor spaces nationwide.
Parks for Inclusion Policy Guide
Helps create formal inclusion policies that emphasize reaching historically marginalized groups. Such policies help ensure that spaces are open, welcoming, and engaging to community members from racial and ethnic minority groups, people with physical and cognitive disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, and new Americans.
Connecting People to Parks: A Toolkit to Increase Safe and Equitable Access to Local Parks and Green Spaces
Guidance for working with community partners to promote local change. It helps agencies use the Safe Routes to Parks framework to create parks and activity-friendly routes to parks that are safe, inclusive, and equitable.
Guide to Implementing Play Streets in Rural Communities
How rural communities can create Play Streets by temporarily closing streets to create safe, publicly accessible spaces where children and families can be active and connect with neighbors. It provides information about the planning process, case studies, successes, challenges, and lessons learned.
The Toolkit for Health, Arts, Parks and Equity (HAP-E)
How to use place-based arts and culture approaches to promote health equity. It includes case studies, principles, and guidelines.
Mapping Tools
ParkServe®
Shows park-related data for 14,000 U.S. cities and towns. Users can see the location of parks in a community, neighborhoods within a 10-minute walk to a park, and areas that do not currently have access to a park.
ParkScore®
Ranks park systems in the 100 most populated U.S. cities. The total score is based on five categories: access, investment, amenities, acreage, and equity.