September 2017 - Parks & Recreation - 48

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Creating Safe Routes to Parks
By Dee Merriam, RLA,FASLA, Eric Sauer, Ian Dunn and Tegan Boehmer

T

he U.S. Surgeon General's 2015 report Step It Up! The Surgeon General's Call
to Action to Promote Walking and Walkable Communities notes that just 22
minutes a day of physical activity, such as brisk walking, can improve your
health. To encourage walking, the report recommends creating desirable
destinations, such as parks, that are close to home and accessible by well-maintained
sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly streets.
Why focus on improving walking
routes to parks? In addition to being
good for you, walking is an option that
is available to most people. If people
can walk to a park, then they can likely
ride a bike or drive there. However, the
opposite is not true. Distributing parks
based on biking or driving distances
excludes regular access for many people and reduces the health benefits they
provide when they are walking destinations. Measuring walking access to
parks is a good starting point to link
parks with public health goals.
In collaboration with the Safe Routes
to School National Partnership, the Na-

46

Parks & Recreation

tional Recreation and Park Association
developed a Safe Routes to Parks action
framework (www.nrpa.org/Safe-RoutesTo-Parks/) for local governments. An
early step in the framework is to determine walking access to parks within the
entire jurisdiction and for specific sites.
An acceptable walking distance will vary
for individuals based on their age, ability
and health, and within different environments. A half mile has been recognized as
the distance that most people are able and
willing to regularly walk to a destination.
Five Rivers MetroParks Case Study
Five Rivers MetroParks (FRMP) in

| S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7 | W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G

Dayton, Ohio, used the Active Living
by Design measures as part of its Safe
Routes to Parks program. FRMP wanted to understand how many residents
live within a half mile of its parks, and
more importantly, how many residents
live within a half-mile walk route of
each park. The measures provide objective, actionable data that can be used
to identify park system gaps and where
infrastructure changes will make a difference. By mapping areas that do and
do not have park access, FRMP can
identify the level of service that it provides across the jurisdiction and by demographic subpopulations. These data
allow FRMP to compare the impact of
projects and evaluate options for land
acquisition and site development.
Several decisions were made before
starting the analysis. First, the primary
focus would be on parks controlled by
FRMP. Second, it was assumed that all



September 2017 - Parks & Recreation

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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/february-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/january-2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/december-2020
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/october-2020
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/april-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/march-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/february-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/january-2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/december-2019
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/august-2017
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/december-2013
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