DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE
WHERE/WHEN APPLICABLE
TESTIMONIES

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE:
The extent to which people have access to parks and open spaces impacts their health and the health of their communities on many levels. People without easy access to clean greenspace have diminished opportunities for exercise and relaxation. They do not benefit from the environmental mediation provided by greenspace, such as clean air and clean water. Children without access to parkland lack creative play space. Finally, people without easy access to greenspace will not benefit from them as equalizers and community builders.

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WHERE/ WHEN APPLICABLE:
In 1999, according to the Boston Department of Parks and Recreation, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and Roxbury had as many or more acres of greenspace per resident than the city of Boston as a whole, whereas Mattapan and Dorchester had significantly less greenspace per resident than the city average. While the city average was ten acres per 1,000 residents, in 1999 Roslindale had 25 acres of greenspace per 1,000 residents. Jamaica Plain had 16 acres per 1,000 residents. Roxbury had ten acres per 1,000 residents. Mattapan had eight acres per 1,000 residents. And Dorchester had six acres per 1,000 residents.

Physical barriers to access:
Access to parks and open spaces is not simply defined by the boundaries around the greenspace. Other barriers such as restricted park areas, commuter rails, and other types of transit lines, blocked entrances, rivers, limited entrances, and inaccessible buffer areas can also make greenspace inaccessible. Examples of physical barriers to existing parks and open spaces in the Heart of the City include:

The Franklin Park Zoo blocks communities near the eastern corner of Franklin Park from accessing the park. Between the main entrance to Franklin Park at the intersection with Columbia Road in Dorchester and Elm Hill Avenue off of Seaver Street in Roxbury, fencing blocks access to the park. Thus, the heavily populated Grove Hall neighborhood and the lower-income Roxbury community north of Seaver Street are much farther away from greenspace than it appears from the perspective of a map.

Fencing around the Parks Department Maintenance Yard blocks access to the southernmost sections of Franklin Park. Although as of 2003 there is no human population in this area, if and when the Boston State Hospital site is redeveloped this blockage could become more significant.

Perhaps the most visible of the blocked entrances to Franklin Park is the entrance along Morton Street that was formerly open to vehicles and pedestrians but is now blocked to all but the most tenacious pedestrian by hunks of stone. A second blocked entrance lies along Blue Hill Avenue.

Commuter rails limit access to greenspace east of Hyde Park Avenue, east of South Street near the Arnold Arboretum, and in the lower Washington Street area generally.

Psychological barriers to access:
Barriers to access can be psychological as well as physical. Poor physical conditions in and around public parks such as trashy roadways, crumbling walls, broken fences and sidewalks, and unclear signage can inhibit community access to open space as much as a blocked entrance. Jamaica Plain residents often cite Morton Street as a psychological barrier that prevents them from accessing the Boston Nature Center.

Some users of Franklin Park consider the graffiti-ridden, overgrown, rusty bear cages at the Bear Dens of Franklin Park along Seaver Street to indicate that this is a remote and dangerous area.

Although awareness of events and other offerings by the Arnold Arboretum is high in the suburbs of Boston, awareness of the park's offerings is low in the communities east of Franklin Park, including Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury.

The dead space within the former Boston State Hospital site southeast of the Boston Nature Center is uninviting, and can pose both a physical and psychological barrier to access.

In 2006, the Franklin Park Coalition, which is comprised of area residents, plans to revive the small corner area of Franklin Park near the junction of Blue Hill Avenue and American Legion Highway - known in the community by its Victorian era name: Mother's Rest.  Benches exist but are in disrepair, overgrown bushes obstruct the views of a nearby creek and what used to be a rolling meadow, and a puddingstone fountain that once created a joyful spot for women to sit and watch their children play has not worked in decades.  The paths that exist in and out of this corner entrance to the park are eroded and strewn with trash.  The group aims to have the area cleaned up, the stone fountain fixed, better lighting, and clearing the brush that obscures the view of the golf course (which used to be a rolling meadow).  In addition they want to install a sign that would identify the area as Mother's Rest. (Robert Preer, "Spot Cleaning Called For; Faded Corner Of Park In Line For Some TLC," The Boston Globe, February 19, 2006)


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TESTIMONIES:
"Access to clean, open spaces is a big public health issue" (Bruce Smith, deputy director of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health and lifelong Dorchester resident).

"It was my husband and my first visit to the area. We were trying to find Franklin Park, but ended up on Morton Street instead. I had the map out looking for where we went wrong. I didn't understand why there were no entrances to the park along its entire southern edge" (a first time visitor to Jamaica Plain).

"It is going to be a wonderful place and a beautiful place...We need to make it more inviting so people will use it and feel safe using it." (Patsy Williams, nearby resident and leader of the Franklin Park Coalition's effort to restore Mother's Rest area of Franklin Park) (Robert Preer, "Spot Cleaning Called For; Faded Corner Of Park In Line For Some TLC," The Boston Globe, February 19, 2006)

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