Greensboro Plan2Play Parks and Recreation Master Plan 2019

46 - FEBRUARY 2019

Trails Today: National and Peer Comparisons Greensboro is also striving to provide walkable access to parks for all residents. Today, about 59% of Greensboro residents have less than a ten-minute walk to their closest park. The city recently joined the 10-minute walk campaign, a nationwide, city-led commitment to support the physical, social and economic health of the community. Aligned with the strategy to improve access to parks, many groups within Greensboro have invested in the trail system, and are continuing to grow and improve it, notably with the branded Downtown Greenway. There are fewer available data sources that benchmark trail targets for a community, and access is also an important component to factor in. With those caveats, based on the team’s experience, an ideal range for city-owned trail access can be assumed to be 0.25-0.5 miles per 1,000 residents. A comparison of the Department’s current terrestrial trail network, at 98 (97.72) miles, to this national benchmark reveals that the city is almost precisely on target today. The city owns 2 miles of blueways, or aquatic paddle sport trails. There are also 35 miles of county,

Figure 26. The Bog Garden trails are a Greensboro favorite for spotting wildlife. Image Source, Jason White. of watershed or more natural trails along the lake edges and within the Battleground Parks District. This area is tied to regional trail systems through the Atlantic and

federal and privately maintained trails that fall within the city limits which much of the city has access to. If these additional miles of trails are included, the city has a total of 135 miles. This equates to 25 miles more trails than the national average for a city system. A closer look at the Department’s trail network shows that while there is ample mileage, trail access is not necessarily equitably distributed across the city. North Greensboro offers an extensive network

Yadkin (A&Y) and Bicentennial Greenways which connect users along north/south paths between the lakes, downtown and further to cities like High Point and east- west along the Mountains to Sea Trail. The Piedmont Trail Conservancy recently finished a feasibility study to develop phase one of the Piedmont Greenway which will connect into the Mountain to Sea Trail