Parks – especially large parks – provide a number of health, social, and environmental benefits. Not all people enjoy these benefits equally due, in part, to the fact that disadvantaged populations generally have worse walking access to large parks than more privileged groups. This study examined another possible way to access large parks – that is through public transit. Two research questions framed the study: (1) How does accessibility to large parks via transit vary by neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics in Western United States? (2) Which disadvantaged groups experience injustices regarding transit-to-parks access in those regions?
Researchers used a novel measure of public transit access to parks (the T2P index) to determine the number of large parks residents in the 15 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. West can reach by using public transit and walking within a given time. They then related those results to neighborhood-level disadvantage (income, race/ethnicity, and age). The T2P index is based on public transit feed data and park location data for every census block group in the 15 study areas. The metropolitan areas included in this study are located in 11 different states: three are Pacific states (California, Oregon, and Washington); eight, Mountain states (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming).
T2P index results showed significant variations both across and within the sampled regions. Generally, however, results across the entire study area showed T2P access increases when a neighborhood has a larger share of non-Hispanic Whites and a smaller share of older adults. For the entire sample, household income was not associated with T2P. There were some variations in the demographic groups experiencing injustice in T2P access. In some areas, racial/ethnic injustice in T2P access was evident, income injustice in other areas, and age-group injustice in still other areas. Areas with income-based injustices tended to have fewer large parks and lower T2P values on average, with lower values reflecting poorer access.
The overall results of this study provide some evidence of environmental injustice, with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities having not only worse walking access to large parks, but also worse transit access to such parks than non-Hispanic White people. Transit agencies and park planners are encouraged to use the T2P index and the findings from this study to address environmental injustices relating to park access and the health benefits such parks provide.
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