Transcript of the interview with Bianca Shulaker, Associate Director, National Programs at The Trust for Public Land

John: Bianca, it's such a pleasure having you here on the active towns podcast.
Welcome.

Bianca: Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. So thanks, John.

John: To get us started. Why don't you do this? Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to the trust for public.

[00:02:51] Bianca's Background

Bianca: Yeah. So I went into college knowing I wanted to do something with the environment. At the time I thought that might be the environment on Mars. I was a chemistry major when I started at UCLA. Had dreams of being an astronaut quickly found that my place was really here on earth. And then I loved cities.
I love built environment. I loved going out to forests. I love going to the beach. And I wanted to study how humans and communities interacted with our physical needs. So I changed majors, changed at the Institute of the environment and did my four years studying everything from biology to chemistry, to physics and learning about the natural world.

[00:03:29] Mention of Dr. Richard "Dick" J Jackson

And at the end of my time at UCLA, Found a class actually, Dr. Dick Jackson at the school of public health and was introduced to the world of policy and how basically health and the environment were intricately connected. And from that work combined, all of those lines. And decided to focus on how parks influence people and communities.

Did my master's at USC and started to do some research. A lot of reading the trust public land kept coming up in everything that I was reading. I loved all of the articles. I love the research. I love the work on the ground that was going on in Los And reached out, started working for them right after grad school and have been now at the organization for almost a decade.

So my current role, I am pretty squarely focused on the park side of our work and interact with every part of the organization and work very closely with about 300 cities to make sure that parks are a top priority for mayors and for city governments.

John: That's great. Yeah, just before we hit the record button, we were talking about the fact that we both know Dick Jackson. He was a huge influential person in my life as well. And just actually deciding to launch this nonprofit, the active towns initiative. Definitely going to reach out to Dick and let him know that that I had a chance to meet you and talk with you here today.

You mentioned parks and a big part of what the trust for public land is involved with is, is helping. Parks to more people and other public land types of things, like why you guys are even in, in the business of helping people get trails on the ground and different things. So why don't we do this?
What you can probably do a better job of it. 30,000 foot overview of what the trust is about because I'm sure many of our listeners don't really know what the trust is. So why don't you do that? Just give a quick overview of the organization.

[00:05:23] An Introduction to The Trust for Public Land

Bianca: Great. Yeah. The trust for public land is a national nonprofit we've been around for about 50 years. And we work to create parks and protect land with the goal of ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come. So people and communities are squarely at the heart of everything we do.
As you mentioned, we do a lot of land protection work, so that's large landscapes national. State parks. We do a lot of close to home parks both in urban and rural communities and trails and school yards as well are our types of public space that we are very focused on. And through all of that work as I mentioned, people in communities are centered in every part of that process.

So it's really important to us in the type of data. We look at how we think about prioritizing places for protection, how we think about. Stewarding or advocating for this work that community need and community voice is really highlighted in every step of that.

We do this work in a number of different ways and we have about 30 offices across the country that are really embedded in communities. And those staff work hand in hand to, to build those public spaces, to design them. But we also work through sort of our research and national programs.
And we work through. Like our conservation finance group to generate new funding and cities. We worked through our research and innovation or new Institute to research best practices to help do planning, to help cities learn about what else is going on in the grounds and how to maximize benefit to communities through public space.

And through my program, we work a lot on advocacy and technical assistance to make sure that. As I mentioned a top line priority for cities across the country.

John: Fantastic. And I know that when you talk about, the urban environment to even helping, neighborhoods or communities, with like even gardens getting in, gardens and into that. Yeah.
Bianca: Yeah, that's right. Every type of public green space, I think has a role to play in our urban. In that network. And we certainly work on different types, finding creative ways, turning alleyways into green spaces, the whole open streets effort that we've seen, particularly over the last year and a half has been really interesting to see evolve.

A lot of those open streets haven't necessarily been parked spaces. A lot of them have been dedicated to restaurants and other economic activity, but it's all part of one ecosystem. And all part of an ecosystem that's really important to make sure operates together. So that we have healthy, thriving communities long past the pandemic and into the future.

John: Yeah. And a more livable.

Bianca: Exactly.

John: Yeah. So one of the reasons I reached out to y'all is because of the park score index. It's a great tool that's out there. Can you give an overview of what the parks score index is and what its purpose.
[00:08:15] An Introduction to the Park Score Index

Bianca: Yeah, absolutely. So park score has been around for several years now, and it is the most comprehensive rating system of park systems in the. So it ranks the top hundred in terms of population, us cities for how they're meeting the needs of parks. So we look at everything from park eight bridge to certain types of amenities to spending per capita.

And this year we just integrated some equity measures into that as well. So the top a hundred cities are all right. The rankings do change from year to year, as cities invest in different types of park spaces in their communities. So I encourage you to check out the website if you haven't and to play around there, I will say that it does focus on the top hundred cities.

But we also have park serve, which maps 14,000 places in the U S so that's, that does include a lot of places, obviously not in the park score index, but also shares the data that underlies the rankings. So park score has mapping and data. For those 14,000 places again, park access equity measures, a lot of environmental measures, including one of the highest resolution heat maps and demographic information as well for park access.

John: And related to that, of course, is this concept because embedded into the park score index, is this concept of a 10 minute walk, talk a little bit about that 10 minute walk campaign, because the two are very interactive.

[00:09:40] The 10 Minute Walk Campaign

Bianca: Yeah, that's correct. So the way that we define close to home access parks is by using the 10 minute walk or half mile measure. So the 10 minute walk has been around for a while. I think the first time at the Chester public lands that we've, we referenced internally was during an all staff meeting in 2000 where our CEO at the time said that we work towards a vision where everybody in the U S is within a 10 minute stroller ride of a park.

So having close to home park spaces, Is core to our work. And we do that for a number of reasons. Access to parks, we believe is a right. There are health, environmental community equity impacts that come along with having access to park spaces. In addition, just to having public space as part of our cities, that's just a really important to democratic and civic essential parks provide a lot of additional benefits by being places to exercise by providing access to nature, having trees and shade protection from floods. A lot of different multi benefits are achieved by making sure that we have those. Of course quality to parks does vary drastically.

So when we're talking about close to home parks, we are also thinking about what does that space look like? What does that walk actually look like? Can people get there? Do they feel safe? Do they feel welcome? So all of that is wrapped into this 10 minute walk metric and into that sort of 10 minute walk headline, if you will.

So we are, we're thinking pretty comprehensively about what that means and how we define that and how we improve.

John: That's fascinating and really quite fabulous. I get very excited when you combine the, the quantitative aspect of it, of, the distance, eh, are we took you talking about a proximity, but then you also overlay that with a qualitative analysis of. Okay. Yeah. It's only a quarter mile to that particular park. So theoretically it's within the 10 minute walk, perspective, but actually there's a barrier there, or there's a high speed roadway there or it's not safe. And so there's the qualitative analysis of, is it feasible, can somebody actually do that walk comfortably.

Bianca: Exactly. And the 10 minute walk, the way that we analyze it on park serve is not the way the Crow flies but is really taking into account. What are those. What does the street network actually look like? But of course, in addition to a lot of that sort of more physical aspects of the things that you can go out and you can observe there's the non-physical aspects of how we interact with space.

So what one person and household feels like is a safe walk. Someone else might not. So there's really important overlay about perceptions lived experience that does need to be considered when we're thinking about it. Both to the space and within the space itself.

John: Not getting too wonky in, in the weeds of the data collection. How do you collect some of that qualitative substance? Since there is a fair amount of subjectivity to that?

[00:12:51] Collecting Qualitative Data

Bianca: Yeah, this is where we're working on the ground with communities. When you're thinking about planning and design is so essential. I don't think anything really replaces the good old talking to people. You can do that through surveys, focus groups, meetings but it is also important to recognize. Those different methods will reach different populations.

So we are, we're pretty careful and thoughtful about the way that we work with other nonprofits or other organizations and community leaders to reach everybody in the community and make sure that everybody has a say. So it is a lot of talking to people on the ground, making sure that process.

To decision-making is democratic, that it is open, that it is inclusive and welcoming. There's a lot of different strategies that our field offices and our community national program have been identifying and using for years. But it's really, there's no replacement for that kind of just asking people how they feel and why they are, or are not using spaces.

John: Exactly. What's really exciting about the park score index and this ability to evaluate the communities at a granular scale. I even focused in and honed in on my neighborhood, here in Austin, Texas and. We're just in the pink of, being just slightly past our closest neighborhood park, which is actually attached to our close elementary school here.

But then again, Literally just 0.6 miles away from the regional park Zilker park here in the downtown area. So we're very close to some, pretty amazing activity assets in that sense, but helps, I think community members, it helps leaders see where their strengths and weaknesses are.

John: And that sort of then brings us to the commitment to the 10 minute walk initiative campaign. Let's talk about that commitment and what y'all are trying to do with that.

[00:14:46] 10 Minute Walk Campaign Commitment

Bianca: Yeah. So the 10 minute walk commitment really grew out of the recognition that if we want everybody in the U S to have access to park space, we're going to need thousands, tens of thousands of new spaces, not to mention the thousands of improvements and just upkeep of existing spaces to make sure that becomes a real.

And there's really no way for any one organization to do that across the country, by themselves. And as I mentioned, at the heart of this is really making sure that the spaces are reflective of community and that they are really embedding those kinds of priorities in every step of the way. So make it the process is intensive.

It requires funding. It requires planning and cry. It requires data and time. And the campaign was meant to inspire and provide the tools and resources so that cities and community. Could really work to advocate for this work and to implement it on the ground. So it is meant to be both a way to raise the awareness about parks and raise the profile.

And of course we've seen that happen through the pandemic in a way. I don't think that anybody really could have expected But in addition to that, once a mayor has made a commitment to the 10 minute walk and making sure that parks are a priority for community members there's a lot of learning and a lot of resources that are needed to actually implement it.

And the campaign works across the trust for public land and the departments and resources that we offer as well as with partners to make sure that cities are learning from each other and have access to the tools that they need to actually.

John: What is the 100% promise?

Bianca: so the a hundred percent promise is the idea that all US residents and we're our programs particularly focused on more urban areas. The Trust for Public Land is focused across the spectrum, but the hundred percent promise is focused mainly on urban areas where you can get. Access to parks within a 10 minute walk of every single person who lives there.

Not to say that can't happen in less dense areas, but it is, it's more of a more compelling talking point and something that is, I think a little bit easier sometimes to imagine in places that are a little bit denser. The idea behind that being that proximity, as I said is really essential.
Having those places close to home is essential for making sure that people can get there easily, that they're not spending a lot of time having to travel and that they actually get the protection the environmental protection that comes with having a space like that close to your house or close to where you live.

So the a hundred percent promise is really meant to be an inspiring call. But we're asking every mayor to commit to the 10 minute walk.

John: And what's the deadline on that promise? When do they need to deliver the goods?

Bianca: So we are encouraging. So of course, with any target, we are encouraging cities to actually. A goal. So we actually have seen cities aiming for a hundred percent, 10 minute walk access by 2030. And we love the cities that are being ambitious and really hoping to do that sooner rather than later. We also recognize that setting a time within policy is just gives a little bit more teeth and ambition to getting that done.
So we are, we're working with cities more one-on-one to set those times. And to figure out the strategies to help them get there.

[00:18:11] Park Upkeep and Maintenance

John: I'm glad that you also channeled upkeep and maintenance of existing facilities too, because that's, something that I think is so incredibly important is that we can't just keep building new things. And yet the things that were just recently new don't get maintained and, don't have that proper upkeep.
So I think that's a really critical point to have made.

Bianca: Yeah, it's also one of the key barriers when we're talking to cities to wanting to invest in, in the a hundred percent promise or the 10 minute walk idea. We do hear that question a lot. How do I maintain my current stock if I'm adding new capital projects to the list? And the fact is that making sure that we're maintaining our public spaces is really important.

And we are working increasingly working to make sure that local funding exists for those purposes. That local budgets are incorporating that we're finding creative ways to co-manage to steward, to program those spaces. Because of course, once it's built maintaining it and making sure that it is actually accessible for use is the whole point.

John: Because it goes back to what we were talking about with the journey, that walk, is it a comfortable walk? And once you get to that open space or that, that community garden, that park, is it a comfortable environment to be in? That is directly tied to, the proper upkeep and management and maintenance of the facility.

Yeah.

Bianca: And a lot of research has also shown that you could have a close to home park, but the number of facilities, the variety of amenities that are there all impacts use patterns. So making sure that you have the right. I use the word right in quotation marks set of facilities that enable a wide range of use and particularly use from the local community is certainly a key consideration.

And one thing that will help me make sure that parks are successful in the long run..

John: That's like that appropriate mix of amenities and facilities that is is reflected or, meets the need of that community.

[00:20:15] Aligning Amenities to Need

Bianca: And of course, on top of that, like what does, is there art that's reflective of the community? Is it a place that kids want to go play? Is there a place for parents to sit while they're watching their kids or other caregivers to be there and enjoy, or to be active while they're there with the.

Who they're caring for? Is it amenable? Is it welcoming to teenagers and to seniors, to every age group and to people of all abilities? Since in think all of these layers are things that we try to consider when we're designing space. And they are, they're all obviously influences about who we end up seeing in those spaces.

And I'll just note that I'm a big proponent of of also assessing the way that our parks work and how interventions are working. And there's a lot of great tools out there to help take a look at our spaces. A couple of tools that I'm most familiar with that I've used in the past include the sow park tool, which is the system for observing play and recreation communities.

And that's a useful tool for going and counting people. So we've done that in an assessment of park spaces before, and there's also the community park audit tool, which we've used in planning the C-PAP tool. And that's both of those. Are valid methods that have been created for helping to assess our spaces.
And I think having a baseline and data can be very helpful for starting conversations about what changes need to happen or what's working make it a little bit more of an objective conversation sometimes and a good starting place.

[00:21:45] All Ages & Abilities

John: Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned all ages and all abilities in there as well, because that's a huge factor with an aging population we're going to have, even more historic numbers and percentages of people transitioning into their latter years.I say as I push back some of my gray hairs here.

And I think that's a huge part of this is, when you're looking at that community, in that neighborhood and evaluating, what are the. Types of amenities and the types of facilities that are necessary. It very well could be, Hey, we now have the need in this neighborhood, in this area for activation programs, programming of an open space, a green space or a park or maybe actually an addition of say, facilities that would be appropriate for an older population.

Bianca: Exactly. And on top of that too, is who you see actually using the park in addition to just having the right facilities, we see those disparities. Not only across age and users, but also just the presence of parks. The size of parks, the quality of parks. And we see those disparities across racial lines and across income lines.

There's certainly a huge park divide equity divide in this country. And it's one that we do need to address.

John: I like the two that you channeled a little bit of the open streets movement, and some of the things that we saw during the pandemic of opening more space, public. To people because especially during the height of the lockdown, they needed to be able to get outside and get some fresh air and get some activity in.

I know in our streets right outside my door here it, it was a tenfold increase in the number of people, walking and biking and seeing neighbors that maybe previously you only saw them through the window of a car as they were driving by. Now you're actually seeing them out in the front yard.
They stop and have a conversation. And it leads me to the thought that our streets, our neighborhoods are have the potential of being what I've always considered trails and pathways, which were linear parks. And, that's such a different way, a mindset of being able to look at your entire, neighborhood and your entire area as being a safe and welcoming environments for all ages.

Bianca: Yeah, the linear park idea is very fascinating to me. I think that there is something to the spaces where you run into neighbors. You just get to use to seeing people. You recognize your neighbor. You can say hi. There's I think a great benefit also, there's a lot of spaces like under utility corridors, for instance, where people don't really go and they are wide swaths of land where we could make linear parks where right now they're forgotten areas and they could be transformed into something that is.
Really beneficial. That does become that place where you say hi to your neighbor or where you walk your dogs and get to know your kids, friends, and things like that. So I think that there's a lot of spaces that we could be taking advantage of to transform them, particularly into these kinds of thoroughfares.

John: And it actually, in hindsight, it could end up being that safe and inviting all ages and abilities facility that helps get you and connect you to, other activity, assets, other green spaces, other parks.

Bianca: Exactly. Yeah. We've seen that a lot in places. Like Chattanooga has a pretty extensive Greenway system. And our team there is working to fill in some of the connectors. So large swaths of the population, right now don't have access to some of the magnificent green spaces that exist in the city or just outside the city and by filling these connectors and making sure there is a network, it does help people access a lot of other spaces.

And that's not only other green spaces, it's other destinations like schools or shopping areas or economic centers and access to jobs. And. Shopping or health healthcare areas, basically any destination we could improve access and create multiple benefits by thinking creatively about what our streets and our network systems look like.

[00:25:58] Potential Route Selection to Activity Assets

John: One of the things that has me intrigued about the concept this ability to map out and, leverage GIS and be able to understand where our activity assets are at and located is this opportunity to do a better job of trip planning, for people because you just, like we were talking about earlier is that, what's that journey like and I'll give an example of if I've got a park right over here, it's not very far away, but if I take this route, it's a very uncomfortable route and it's not a very welcoming route, but if I take this other route, oh my gosh it's delightful.

And I wonder is that something that is part of the future of this data is to be able to help with trip planning?

Bianca: That's a good question. I would say mobility data is something we are looking at. And we built in, I think, more into our local planning efforts right now. Thinking about. The boundary of the park look like, what does it look like when you start to think more extensively outside of park boundary?

That's something that we've done on a small scale, for instance. There's a park in Newark where we also improved some of the safe routes to the walk for students going into the school and the community park that was then built as part of that school yard putting in new crosswalks, making sure that there are bus stops and public transportation options that are nearby.

Thinking about what it looks like and how as parks professionals, and parks planners, we can influence that process and influence spending and investment to make sure that infrastructure exists is certainly part of our process. In terms of mobility data. We're certainly looking at that in, as I said, in our planning efforts using it within Park Serve to help plan is a really interesting idea. I don't know that we're there quite yet with integrating different options, but it is, it's certainly something that we're looking at when we're doing planning with cities.

John: Such exciting potential with that.

Bianca: Yeah, it is.

John: Just spit balling a little bit here. It's just like an interesting potential collaboration with, one of the largest organizations in the world and what most people do, their their trip planning with and, be able to create more enjoyable, more comfortable routes to that park to that trail head, all those. Yeah. So anyways...

Bianca: Yeah, I think we're on the same wave length there. With the tremendous opportunity that would exist with thinking about mobility data and the transportation network and that access. What does the access look like in addition to the the park spaces I and exactly what you're getting at.
On the same wavelength.

John: To be continued. So since we're talking about the journeys why 10 minute walk and not five minute car drive?

[00:29:01.] Getting to the Park by Walking or Biking

Bianca: Of course there's the benefits that come with walking or biking or rolling. There's the physical activity component of that, which we know is really important. Physical health and mental health The impacts of doing that, that good benefits. Of course, with thinking about wanting to get out of our cars and reduce carbon and everything else, making sure that there are opportunities to get out into your neighborhood. And as you mentioned, just the opportunity to actually see other people and know who your neighbors are and to feel that sense of community. I don't think there's any replacement for just going out into your front yard and being physically present with those who you live around.

That was the huge part. My memories growing up is being able to go out onto my street and know who was across the street from me and to meet the other kids in the neighborhood. So I think that there's a lot of reasons why we think about 10 minute walk versus car ride. Of course. Being able to access places by car or transit is really important.

I know Los Angeles has been doing some interesting work around making sure that there are transit connections to some of their parks spaces. Of course, LA has some really amazing, bigger public lands. So they've been working to increase transit options to some of them. Of course, people might need to drive to get to those or be able to walk, to get to the transit option.

But making sure that there are a range of options available, I think is one of the best ways to make sure there's inclusive use of parks. I would say the 10 minute walk. Versus five minute walk or 20 minute walk. I think there's a lot of benefits that come to having like trees, having that shade, having the impervious surface to protect from flooding.

All of those are. Benefits that you get by having close to home parks making sure that there are places to absorb pollutants from those cars, even having that green sponge in your neighborhood. I think a lot of it also has to do with how we feel about our neighborhoods. Is there a sense of pride when you think about where you live?

Are you proud of it? Does it look beautiful? Do you feel happy? And I think all of those are things that close to home parks can really help express.

John: It also makes me reflect on the challenge that many parks and park agencies have in terms of making sure that they are welcoming and inclusive to everyone. And also so that you can reasonably get there. And I keep hearing about, feeling the need to add more, parking, more car parking to them.
And I'm like raising my hand going well, how about we also make it accessible by bicycle so we can hopefully, off shift some of those people who are actually, making that car journey to that park, because maybe it is. Just outside of what is a comfortable walk there. They're like, okay I can't walk there.
We want to go have a picnic and, if they feel like it's not safe and comfortable for them to ride a bike to the park, they're going to drive. They're going to grab those keys and throw the picnic gear into the back of the trunk and take off. Is there any thought going on within the trust with this analysis of that cycle network overlay and accessibility so that we can, try to do our best to get as many people out of those cars for those shorter trips.

Bianca: Yes, I think it's something that in particularly the 10 minute walk team has been very interested in. There's a number of. Teammates that I work with, who come more from the transportation, from the health field and bike safe routes. All of the sort of alternative methods of travel are front and center for the way that they think about parks and city planning.

Thinking about partnerships with organizations like safe routes and organizations around the best practices around complete streets are certainly a part of what we recommend. And aim to build into our more comprehensive approach to park planning. I think that it's not just a matter of getting people out of their cars, but it's making sure that we actually get people to use it because the alternative is people yes.
Maybe get in their car or they think as is too much effort. Or I don't have the time to do this. I'm just not going to go. And losing park users I think is a big risk. Even walking, isn't always that safe, getting people to feel comfortable, biking is another challenge. One of the groups that we've worked with closely a couple of years ago through one of our grant programs was in Colorado Springs and the trails and open space net coalition. And they worked with local groups to think about byte net, bike networks, like libraries bike training. So just getting on a bike and knowing how to go on. It's not something that everybody knows how to do.

I'm not particularly comfortable biking in cities yet either having just moved to New York a couple of years ago. That's still taking me a little bit of time but understand it. If you know that you're going to have a bike path, or if you know that you're going to have protected lanes, you're much more likely to go if you're not entirely comfortable and having the resources to say, oh, I can go to my local library and learn.
Use a bike or check out tools to make sure my bike is maintained. There's a lot of programming, a lot of capacity building that I think needs to go into it. In addition to just the hardscape and infrastructure that a lot of cities don't haven't invested in yet either.

John: You're in the Brooklyn area?

Bianca: Correct yes. Brooklyn Heights area.

John: I've got some friends there that can help you get out on the bike. There in that environment and you really made a good point because it has to, you have to have safe and inviting infrastructure, protected bike lanes and separated paths to be able to truly make that a viable option for a broader scope of people.
I'm comfortable riding a bike anywhere, whether it's in Los Angeles or, on the streets or wherever it's not for me. It's really about getting more people comfortable to be able to make journeys to meaningful destinations, like our open spaces and like our parks and sort of an overlay.

[00:35:13] Amenities that Support Active Mobility

John: One of my pet peeves, with our local park system here sometimes is I'll make that. By bike to the park, maybe to the tennis courts or to the trail, head to go for a run. And there's no place to park my bike. We literally don't have the bike racks installed to encourage people to, to ride the bike to the park.

Bianca: Yeah, exactly. It's not just thinking through. Yeah, it's not just thinking through, is there a marked lane here? It's every step of the process. Do you have a place to store it when you get there? Reducing barriers to entry, so shared bikes, making sure that they're inexpensive for people to be able to check out and use.

Building capacities, as I said, making sure that there is that training and there are opportunities to learn and explore and try new things. I think it's part of what makes our cities fun and it's providing those opportunities for everybody,

John: Yeah. Along the lines with the bike racks is also, do you have access to the public restrooms? Do you have access to drinking water?

Bianca: Right! Yeah. It's Bathrooms drinking, water lighting the entryways. All of those are very interesting conversations. When they come up around park design, there's often two sides to those coins. There's usually a very needed conversation and debate that happens about where do you place those? If the park is closing at night, do you put lights who up keeps those things?

How do you make sure that if they are available, that they are in good condition and working conditions, how do you fund that? And how do you make sure that continues? That sometimes the easier option is to say, oh, we're going to close them. But how do you make sure that they are actually operational, that they are safe for everybody to use?

John: And is that the level of qualitative analysis that you are looking at either in Park Score or Park Serve, is that also encapsulated in there from the data collection?

Bianca: So Park Score does take into account certain types of amenities. The number of basketball courts, for instance, that are available per capita. We are embarking on some interesting work to think through what does an amenity mix look like? What if we study distribution, if we study the number of amenities that are needed, If we study the impact that having a basketball court versus a soccer field or flexible space has on park use it is something we are, we're looking at pretty actively.

It has a lot to do with that quality question.

[00:37:48] Interactive Platform

John: And I do notice that, there's an opportunity for people to interact and give feedback on, the qualitative analysis of it or whatever, and be able to feed some information that way. So an example that'll give is we'll jump on our bikes and go over to the local park and there's tennis courts there.
They're not the best tennis courts in the world, but they're okay. But that would be an example of, yeah, they're okay. They're not great tennis courts, after it rains, there's going to be water pooling and things of that nature. I think you're you get where I'm going on this is that. Yeah, there's a basketball court over there. Oh. But by the way the hoop was broken months ago. It's not functional. So yeah, it gets ticked off on the grid of saying, yeah, we've got a basketball court, but oh, by the way, it actually is an operational. So that's, and that's a huge qualitative data collection management challenge that Obviously ultimately needs to get funneled to the park service, the park organization, the city, to be able to handle and deal with.

Bianca: Yeah. And it's one of the barriers that we see come up over and over again. Funding, absolutely being one of the major barriers as well, to making sure that our park systems are all top-notch and serving at the best of their abilities. But having the data and the information to make decisions is a barrier.
And it's thing. Cities are doing more of Atlanta and San Francisco have for a while, been doing these sort of maintenance surveys. And I know Atlanta just did a pretty big effort to collect data on each and every one of their parks. We've also seen this in places like Portland, Maine the did and has committed to doing this sort of revamp. Or to do a survey of their parks. I think they've done it now twice over the course of the last five to seven years to go and look at each park space and actually assess how, what it looks like. Is it operational? Is it truly accessible? It's also a place. And you mentioned that it does fall on the parks departments and it is helpful.

Of course, if you have consistent data collection, because then you can really make relative decision-making and prioritization, but it's also a place where community members and volunteers can be really helpful is a lot of times if your neighborhood and you can go to those parks and you can provide the information to, to the city.

So it is a place where people can really contribute and provide very meaningful information. To, to use Colorado Springs as an example, again, I know that they're doing some youth training and having youth Corps, that's helping to collect information on park quality and to identify those barriers.
A lot of communities have done sort of these photo voice efforts as well to get youth engaged in assessing neighborhood conditions. And it's a real opportunity to build in community input through the data collection.

[00:40:47] Comparing Park Funding

John: You mentioned funding several times in there. And I noticed that's also one of the metrics that is captured in the Park Score. So cities and communities can get a little bit of a comparison to, where their city is at currently and relative to. The norm out there nationally.

Bianca: That's correct. And let's face it. There's a lot of competing priorities for cities. And we know that city budgets are often. Pretty strapped. And there's a lot of asks and demands on that funding pot. In the last year during the pandemic, we worked with Boston university and did us a survey of mayors there.
The Boston university Institute of cities does a, an annual survey of mayors. And this year they did a specific survey around parks. And one of the findings was that although mayors know that residents are increasingly using parks and will continue to do so past the pandemic, they're still anticipating cuts to park budgets.

And that's not necessarily a new trend. That's often the case when there's a strain. But there's a lot of creative ways to think about shared priorities across departments to fund park spaces and the presence of green spaces through sewer districts or through flood districts to think about school land.
Actually The Trust for Public Land just released a report today about how school properties can be really influential. And I think there's 2 million acres of school property. A lot of that is asphalt and could be transformed into park spaces and really tap into federal state and local funds that are traditionally not thought of for this kind of space or for this kind of activity.

So I think there are a lot of creative ways to think about how we identify those shared priorities and leverage funding to go along with them.

John: So is there anything that we haven't yet talked about that you want to make sure we cover?

[00:42:40] It's About the Benefits of Park Spaces

Bianca: I'd like to reiterate that I, the parks, we talk about parks, but it's not parks for park sakes. It's really the multi benefits that they provide to communities there's environment. There's the climate protection. There's the really essential civic and community benefits that come along. Both with the presence of these spaces and also the processes that we use to design create and steward them.

Bianca: There's the tremendous health benefits. And that's certainly been one of the most celebrated and highlighted over the last 18 months. And I would encourage everyone to check out some of the information that we have in the reports that are coming out that really highlight and provide the data to describe the park equity divides that we have and to find ways to engage in your local communities to help address that.

I think there's a lot of opportunity. For advocacy for thinking creatively about funding and participating. And it's also a unique space where everyone can have the opportunity to share their unique talents or their unique perspectives in designing a public realm. That's really for everybody. So I would just, I would end on that and say that I think that. way beyond just having access to a green space. It is really important to have access to nature and to all of those benefits that I mentioned, but it's also a real opportunity for us to come together as communities and to celebrate our public life.

John: And, like you said earlier, too, being creative too, about what those spaces look like, they can be. Community gardens that can be, open space areas that can be trails. They can be a school yard areas, opening school, more school yards and playgrounds, and those types of things and making them more accessible to the community.

One last question for you based on the work that you are doing, what advice would you have for those listeners that are inspired by the discussion today and want to make a difference in their community? What should they do?

[00:44:47] How to Engage in Your Neighborhood & City

Bianca: It's a great question. And I would say that there are opportunities on every level to engage. So there's everything from. Participating in an open meeting that your city government is having around a new park or talking to your parks department or talking to your mayor's office about how important parks are and elevating that conversation locally there's opportunities to volunteer.

And if you have a local park, you can help start a friends group, or you can participate in an existing one. It's. It's not an intractable problem. There are a lot of things we can do. I think that they are one of the most welcoming spaces if we make them that way. And just encourage to get involved at the local level.
And of course, if you are, if you can get involved at the state, federal level too the beautiful thing about democracy is there's opportunities to engage and we should use our voices. So that kind of advocacy, making sure that their is known how have parks impacted you? Encourage sharing stories, the work that you do around storytelling and bringing these issues to life, I think is a huge part of what people can do on all scales to make sure that parks are a priority and not not something that's on the chopping block. Consistently.

John: And in speaking of the mayor's office, encourage the mayor to take the pledge that 10 minute walk pledge.

[00:46:16] How to Contact The Trust for Public Land and 10-Minute Walk Campaign

Bianca: Yes. And if you were interested in learning more, please do visit the 10 minute walk website, 10minutewalk.org. We would love to hear from you. We are actively working, as I said, with many cities across the country. We are very happy to work with you to sign on your mayor or to help take things to the next level, to provide resources or connect you with them.

So yes, please reach out, please take a look and encourage your mayors, if they haven't signed on to do and if they have signed on that, they make commitments and take actions to actually implement that pledge.

John: And since I know we are an international audience, hopefully a, these ideas are something that it resonates with you too, out there, or wherever you might be. And the website too, for the trust for public land is tpl.org. So be sure to check out that, and you'll be able to get over to the park, score link right there on that main website.

[00:47:11] Closing

John: Thank you so very much Bianca for talking with me today and thank you for joining me on the Active Towns Podcast.

Bianca: Thank you so much, John, it's been a pleasure.