Public Parks

Condition & Capacity

Since more state and national parks have been established to accommodate increased visitation, overall capacity has remained relatively level. However, increased visitation has added additional stress to park infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and buildings. On average, park and recreation agencies across the country provide one park for every 2,386 residents, with 10.6 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. Park acreage per resident varies tremendously. For instance, among the 15 cities with the most parkland per 1,000 residents (including federal, state, county, metro, and city parks), Anchorage, AK, leads with more than 3,000 acres, followed by Chesapeake, VA, with 230 acres, and Nashville, TN, in 15th place with 35 acres.

The NPS currently manages 429 recreation areas, including parks, national forests, national monuments, and national wildlife preservation areas, as well as over 75,000 constructed assets ranging from visitor centers and utility systems to roads, bridges, and trails. Altogether, these recreation areas cover over 85 million acres, about the area of California, and welcomed 325 million visitors in 2023. In 2020, visitation declined dramatically to 237 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic but has steadily increased since then. While visitation to national parks declined during 2020, local parks saw large increases in visitation. A recent Federal Lands Transportation Program report lists 57% of paved roads in national parks in good condition, 30% in fair condition, and 13% as poor. The same report listed 66% of bridges in fair condition, 31% in good condition, and 3% in poor condition.11 In comparison, 39% of major roads in the U.S. are listed as in poor condition, and 49% of bridges are in fair condition.

Federally operated parks range from the 13-million-acre Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska to the 0.02-acre Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Pennsylvania. Altogether, facilities maintained by the NPS include over 5,500 miles of paved roads, 17,000 miles of trails, and 25,000 buildings. Despite the vast total national parkland acreage, the most popular national parks have had to limit visitation due to visitor demand outpacing resources. Prominent and famous national parks are seeing record numbers of visitors, while lesser-known parks have experienced decreased visitation. This discrepancy leads to increased stress on resources that could be mitigated by encouraging exploration of lesser-known destinations.

The USACE trails the NPS in total annual visitors, receiving 268 million visits in 2023. The 4,746 USACE-operated recreational areas cover 4 million acres of land and an additional 5 million acres of water, with 41,000 miles of shoreline and almost 8,000 miles of trails. Over 90% of USACE recreation areas are within 50 miles of a major metropolitan center.

State parks received 867 million visitors in 2023, an increase of approximately 60 million from 2017. The number of state parks has increased by 15%, or just over 1,300 parks, since 2021; totaling 9,817 state-operated parks in 2023 covering over 20 million acres of land. A survey conducted by the National Association of State Park Directors (NASPD) reported the condition of state park roads as 4.8 out of 10 and water infrastructure as 5 out of 10. The rating has been consistent since the last survey in 2021. The same survey found that over half of state park directors believe park facilities are unable to accommodate the significant increase in visitation in recent years. With increased park visitation, park facilities have experienced additional use, which has led to a faster decline in quality. State parks also struggle to contend with challenges introduced by extreme weather, which require workers to spend more time responding to these events than keeping up with routine maintenance.

At the local level, park accessibility varies significantly. Data from the Trust for Public Land (TPL) indicates that 100 million people, including 28 million children, do not have easy walking access to parks. Local parks serving primarily low-income households are, on average, four times smaller than parks that serve higher-income households. Among the 100 most populated cities in the U.S., the percentage of the population able to access a park within a 10-minute walk ranges from almost 100% to just 25%, with the median rate for all cities and towns in the U.S. being 55%.

Operation & Maintenance

National, state, regional, and municipal parks currently deal with significant workforce challenges that affect the ability of parks to maintain and improve conditions. Many states have increased staffing over the last 5–10 years, but staffing has been unable to keep pace with increased visitation rates and compensation remains relatively low, leading to high attrition rates. National parks are facing a similar challenge, with the park service having to cut 16% of their full-time staff due to budget constraints. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) allocated $500 million to the NPS in an effort to alleviate some of those budget constraints, yet hiring remains slow. As of May 2024, the NPS has dedicated about $21 million toward hiring, meaning the majority of the available funding, which is set to expire in 2030, might not get used at the current pace. To assist with attrition concerns, the NPS has created the Facilities Workforce Career Academy (FWCA) to provide skills-based training to current and prospective NPS employees. This program helps the NPS meet a need for skilled workers and provides career growth opportunities to current NPS employees.

The two accounts within the NPS budget that address regular and deferred maintenance have seen a 17% increase in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2013 and 2023. About 84% of 2023 NPS spending went to the Operation of National Park Systems (ONPS) account to support day- to-day activities, programs, and services.38 The next largest account, construction, received 7% of available funding for repair, replacement, and improvement of existing facilities, as well as new construction.

The NPS also engages in partnerships with outside organizations, who assume some asset maintenance responsibilities. The NPS also leases assets to other parties, and in exchange, the lessee rehabilitates or maintains the asset. Many NPS units engage volunteer groups to perform maintenance duties; if the NPS could increase its volunteers to 600,000 by 2028, it would result in 40 million hours of volunteer labor valued at $802.6 million over 10 years.

Like national parks, state and local parks also rely on volunteers (“friends of,” “conservancy for”) organizations to supplement maintenance tasks such as the removal of invasive species. Regional park agencies (“Metroparks”) and municipalities tend to maintain the state department of transportation-rated roads and bridges within their properties, in addition to smaller nonrated bridges. They do not inspect buildings, pavement, dams, storm sewers, and other infrastructure assets. On average, state park and recreation agencies dedicate 46% of their operating budget to park management and maintenance.

Public Safety & Resilience

In addition to being beneficial for public mental and physical health, parks are a vital tool for a community’s resilience. Parks are being used to manage stormwater overflow during extreme weather events and are protecting communities from dangerous flooding. Efforts are being made in some flood-prone areas to return the landscape to its original state and thereby act as a buffer between bodies of water and communities. Parks in this way contribute to the sustainability of communities and mitigate the effects of climate change.

State park directors continue to note concerns over the impact of extreme weather on park systems. Increased coastal flooding, algae blooms, and invasive species are affecting park access and conditions.

The East Side Coastal Resiliency Project in New York City aims to enhance parks while creating a 2.4-mile-long flexible flood barrier. This $1.5 billion project will provide flood protection and improve open spaces for more than 120,000 New Yorkers. The ResilienCity Park Project in Hoboken, NJ, which was partially funded by the IIJA, is another project designed to serve its community, by transforming a former industrial site into a public park. The park will include a multipurpose athletic field, a basketball court, and other public spaces that double as a stormwater detention basin. Below-ground, stormwater infrastructure will also be added to allow the park to detain up to 2 million gallons of stormwater that would otherwise flood city streets.

Eighty-four percent of U.S. adults support their local parks and recreation agencies undertaking or continuing projects on environmental provisions or natural disaster prevention.

When considering safety in public parks, adequate lighting is routinely cited by community members as critical. However, park services must weigh the impacts of increased illumination on local ecosystems with community needs. Los Angeles has instituted a program called Summer Night Lights (SNL), which adds lighting, keeps parks open later, and brings in community social workers to prevent gang-related violence. At the eight parks where SNL was introduced in 2008, gang violence had reportedly dropped to its lowest level since 1967. In addition to increased lighting, parks are using more security cameras to enhance safety. Security cameras are increasingly viable as manufacturing costs have dropped and many are now solar powered.