March 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 30

SOCIAL EQUITY

Who Can Access the Greenway?
By Jeongseup Lee and Jamie Rae Walker

reenways are linear urban green spaces that not only connect
parks, neighborhoods, businesses and other public spaces, but
also strengthen the quality of life for residents through connectivity and outdoor recreation. Some studies have highlighted the
positive health impacts of greenways, but not all residents have the same access
to them. The differing opportunities to easily use greenways influence health.
Thus, it is important to examine whether neighborhoods with different demographic and socioeconomic statuses have equal access to greenways.
The city of San Antonio completed construction on a portion of
its greenway system in 2018. The
recently built portion of the system
serves as a case study for conducting analysis to measure accessibility
for various residents. These findings
can help planners and policymakers
investigate equality, or lack thereof,
in access to greenways and develop policy directions to guide future
decision-making.

The Methodology
Census data was gathered and
mapped to investigate the socioeconomic factors in Bexar
County, Texas, which includes
San Antonio. Geographic Infor-

Parks & Recreation

mation System (GIS) data, including information on streets,
greenway trails and trailheads -
indicating greenway entrances -
were pulled from online city sources.
Environmental Systems Research
Institute ArcMap tools assisted in
measuring network distance (the
shortest path between two locations)
to investigate accessibility. These
functions allow researchers to search
a point on a map and find the closest
facilities to that point.
The study measured accessibility
using network distances (along streets)
from each neighborhood to the nearest
greenway entrances. It also captured
the number of greenway entrances
within specific distances (one, three

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and five miles, respectively) of the center of each Census block group.
It was assumed formal greenway
route entrances (i.e., parking lots)
were the only accessible places.
Accessibility was calculated using
the shortest network distance from
the center point of Census block
groups to each greenway route
entrance and the " service area "
looked at the number of greenway
entrances within one, three and five
miles from the block groups.

Key Study Findings
The results indicate San Antonio's
city center has a denser population
than its outer area. The north side of
Bexar County had a more significant
proportion of households with high
household incomes and per capita incomes than those of the south
side. Furthermore, the urban area
has higher greenway accessibility
according to the network distance
and the number of service areas than
the suburban area. Block groups in
urban areas had shorter distances
to the nearest greenway entrances
and tended to have more greenway
entrances within one, three and five
miles than those in suburban areas.
Meanwhile, data indicate education
level and household income had
an impact on the number of greenway entrances accessible within
five miles. Spatial analysis also indicated the area with more housing
units had lower accessibility of the
greenway system. Other results depicted that population density, age,
percentage of African American,
Hispanic or Latino, female, higheducational attainment and unem-

March 2020 - Parks & Recreation

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