Safewalks: neighborhood stroll to peaceful existence.

The professionals and volunteers in parks and recreation have long taken their energies into the inner cities. In recent years, they have helped create midnight basketball, after-school programs, counseling through recreation, and vacant lot playgrounds. They have brought hope, fun, optimism, pride, and more into the lives of millions of people of different races, ages, and genders.

Now, the people of inner city parks and recreation can add a new project to their list of achievable goals...the Safewalk. A Safewalk is an inner city greenway, a safe way to get to the midnight basketball game, walk to the corner grocery store, bike to the pocket parks, or play "sidewalk" games with a friend. A Safewalk is a product and not a program. It changes the land which, in turn, helps change people's behavior and attitudes. A Safewalk is a designated route that connects people with places they want to frequent. Adults and seniors share the corridors with children, and successful stores flank the sides. The Safewalk can be three blocks long and travel on the sidewalk, or it can be a separate linear park that winds through vacant lots and skirts along park land.

The route is enhanced with a nice surface, benches, flowers, trees, and grass. Anyone caught dealing drugs or "selling sex" within the Safewalk can be given a stiffer penalty. In the parlance of tag, a Safewalk is considered "home free." A Safewalk is not just window dressing; it is a tangible project that touches people's lives and lifts their spirits.

Four components go into creating a Safewalk: local control, land, design, and money, in that order. It is important to note that it doesn't necessarily take a lot of money to create a Safewalk; but it can't be done unless the community members run the show.

Local Control Creates Unity of Purpose

Creating a Safewalk is 75% community and 25% land, design, and money. Inner city residents know the land, people, socializing patterns, buildings, and vacant lots better than anyone. They also are the ones with the daily vigilance to make sure it is maintained. Community members can be drawn initially into the Safewalk concept by introducing the idea, asking them which key locations should be connected, outlining design options, and identifying funding sources. Then they will be the ones to pick the final route, choose the benches, select the garbage cans, and even buy the flowers.

The first contact could be with a church group, a building committee, or a group of people active in improving their neighborhood. Disadvantaged youth or even gangs can be brought into the planning phase. Local citizens can be hired to perform the construction and later can be contracted to do the maintenance. The community must have first and final say because how the Safewalk looks and is used becomes its responsibility.

Location, Location, Location 

For a Safewalk to be successful, it must take a lot of people to places they want to go. High traffic means low risk. The Safewalk should connect the crime watch neighborhoods with the schools, stores, and/or other neighborhoods. Connections are more important than having the perfect continuous park setting. The Safewalk might travel on a sidewalk, go through an alley, cross a stress, and run alongside a river near a road.

All land should be looked at through rose-colored glasses. The community members have to take whatever land they can get and make the most of it. The broken glass and weeds in front of the abandoned building may seem as desolate as the boarded up structure, but a Safewalk in that location might provide a desired route, plus an economic kicker. The Safewalk could entice a developer to fix up the abandoned building that now has frontage on a greenway.

The proposed plans for a Safewalk's route don't need to be finalized right away. As the concept gains acceptance and other neighborhoods want to be included, the route could change. Adjacent storefront owners can help increase the Safewalk traffic. They can put a sticker in their windows identifying their business as part of the Safewalk corridor. Children can be told to go into buildings with that sticker when they are lost, scared, or need to call for help. At the same time, residents in two-story brownstones can be part of the safety factor in location and route selection. With watchful eyes from their second story windows, these individuals can call police if a disturbance occurs. They will be the guardian angels from on high who make sure kids get home safely.

Design: Beauty in the Eyes of Neighborhood Beholders

The design components of a Safewalk should be selected for safety and aesthetics. A civic catalyst once said, "When something looks wrong, it feeds decay." But the reverse is also true: "When something looks right, it feeds improvement." The Safewalk should be clean, which may require litter patrol. The route needs garbage cans, even if it involves the cost of disposing of other people's trash. Surfaces that invite graffiti should be avoided. If a wall--such as a concrete retaining wall--does exist, it must be "graffiti-proofed." This can be achieved by putting a special coating on the surface to which spray paint won't affix.

If a concrete wall needs to be painted to hide graffiti, special care should be taken to match the touch-up paint to the color of the wall. It is counterproductive if the cover-up job looks as sloppy as the graffiti does. Of course, walls can be covered with ivy to deter spray paint artists. And chain-link fences and even bushes are good substitutes for stockade fencing because they don't hold the spray paint.

Benches should be attractive and sturdy. If they are fragile, they will be vandalized quickly, and the downward spiral begins. There should be no advertising on the benches or the garbage cans, as lettering adds a cluttered look to an already cluttered cityscape and invites defacing with knives and paint. If donors or others need to be acknowledged, small tasteful plaques are the best bet. And this is a public symbol of community ownership and support.

Lighting can set the tone for the whole Safewalk. No lighting means the path never will be used at night; and the graffiti painters have free reign. Too much lighting could make the Safewalk look like a prison yard at night. Therefore, the shape of the light source, the glow it sends out, and even the look of the pole in daylight all should be taken into consideration. Lighting should not be an afterthought. It should be planned as carefully as the ambiance lighting in a good restaurant. Utility poles and liens add to the visual confusion; wheneve possible, the lines should be buried.

Safewalks are for pedestrians and bicyclists who sometimes need to get across a busy road. The three options for this route include a passage across the road, overhead on a pedestrian bridge, or underneath in a tunnel. If tunnels are used, they should be inviting and give the illusion of being above the grade.

Care should be taken in choosing vegetation. Soft, dense bushes serve as hiding places. A prickly bush is preferable, because no one can crouch comfortably inside. Trees should be trimmed for a full view under canopy. Grass should be planted where it can grow and not become dust. And a place for flowers is a must.

Money Is Available

Funding exists for Safewalks, including funds in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) for creating bicycle and pedestrian facilities, planting trees, taking down billboards, and doing historic preservation. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has funds for community improvements. The Crime Bill contains money that deals with security under a modified Land and Water Conservation Fund; and money for lighting and phone systems is in the bill language. There is also Urban Parks and Recreation (UPAR) recovery money for rehabilitating facilities.

Traditional urban recreation could be funded under the regular UPAR program or the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Additionally, some communities may have available in their states funds associated with the maintenance of trails in the statewide share of the National Recreational Trails Fund. Block grants might be a flexible source of funding related to crime prevention that would be available through the states. Some drug prevention or child or juvenile programs might adapt to Safewalk goals. State Youth Corps groups would be able to put some muscle and skill into creating the Safewalk, especially on park land.

The finished Safewalk provides a long list of benefits including reduction of crime, economic development, health, and environment. And that the funding sources can be just as broad as the benefits. Every source should be researched and applied for, even if at the outset the application seems like a stretch. All organizations want to fund tangible successes; and Safewalks; if created and used by the community, can be award-winning projects.

Real-life Success Stories

The concept of Safewalks is new, but similar success projects have proven successful in communities across the nation. For example, a 1994 Time magazine article talked about a Safe Corridor project in Conoga Park, California, in which adults wear a special hat that designates them as "safe" individuals who can walk children home from school. The Watts Tower Crescent Greenway in Los Angeles was initiated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to beautify an agency-owned railroad right-of-way. A vacant area adjacent to the Metro Blue Line 103rd Street Station is now a colorful landscaped pathway connecting the rail station to the historic Watts Tower Monument and Art Center. The one-acre site includes a paved bike-pedestrian path, lawn, drought tolerant trees, flowering shrubs, bark ground cover, and an irrigation system.

Four million dollars recently were approved to fund a project in a central city neighborhood in Houston, Texas. Active use of a long abandoned rail corridor in the eastern section of the Buffalo Bayou will breathe new life into one of the city's oldest and most historic areas. This part of the town is almost entirely Hispanic, and many of the people are poor. The optimism concerning the project runs high.

Lillie May Jones, an African-American who lives in North Richmond -- an orphaned part of Contra Costa County in California -- fought and won an environmentally sensitive flood design for the Wildcat Creek.

She and others worked to make sure the results included a picnic area and trails as well as natural vegetation. According to Ann Riley of the Coalition to Restore Urban Waters, who reported on the project, "The community has initiated Herculean efforts and innovations to overcome federal obstacles to funding such projects for poor communities."

Another project in California is a park, greenway, and trail along Courtland Creek in inner city Oakland. This greenway is being developed by a low-income, racially diverse community that includes African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and Anglo-Americans. The corridor follows an old abandoned trolley route. An important incentive for developing this greenway was the neighborhood's desire for a safe place for children to play close to home.

Nashville, Tennessee, has designed the first official Safewalk. The landscape architecture firms of Lose and Associates, Inc. and Greenways, Inc. even designed a Safewalk sign. Created for the neighborhood called East Nashville, the plan spans Shelby Avenue to Shelby Park. The area has a large number of rental properties, high crime rate, and low quality of life. The community has a substantial number of structures in need of rehabilitation and over 51% of the neighborhood's population is below 80% of the median area income level. The Safewalk area includes access to Shelby Park, which contains a community center, tennis courts, ball fields, playground, golf course, shelters, and a lake. Elementary, middle, and high schools are also in the area.

Safewalk to the Future

Safewalks might seem like an idealized scheme for inner cities that sound good on paper but which don't work in real life; yet Safewalks work. Though new in concept, related projects have been tried and proven successful.

Safewalks may work because of the basic human fairness that says there should be an equality of social conditions. All Americans should be able to go for a walk, experience the changing seasons, recreate, socialize with neighbors, and--for kids--walk safely to and from school.

The professionals and volunteers in parks and recreation can help make safety and pride common notes in all communities by creating Safewalks. And citizens can use these entities to take back their communities. The result is that everyone wins.

For more information on Safewalk tunnels, contact Bill Lockwood at [phone].