Studies show more ways that parks contribute to local economies and tax revenues

Many people think of parks as an expense - the costs associated with clearing the land, planting trees, installing park benches, mowing the grass, emptying trash receptacles, etc.

What if we reversed that mindset and thought of parks as economic engines instead?

To generate more revenue and taxes, build more parks. Big. Small. Doesn't matter. Just build more. Add more amenities such as artwork, sculptures, picnic tables, trees, grills, playgrounds, band stands, park benches, or even musical instruments. Because parks attract people. And revenue.

Here are 10 reasons why parks should be considered in terms of economic development and as a way to boost an economy.

Why parks have an economic impact Parks increase the value of homes: According to a study in Portland, homes located within 1,500 feet of a park were priced an average of 5% to 20% more than other homes. That means higher tax valuations. Which means

Commercial bike racks are becoming a more important part of the landscape as the number of bike commuters has increased 46% nationwide from 2005 to 2013 and more than 100% in several major cities

Commercial bike racks vary in shape and size but are basically designed for two types of classes - long-term and short-term parking. Both of those classes involve bicycle security.

It's important to know how your location applies to those bicycle parking classifications.

But here's probably the most important factor to consider - bike thefts.

Bicycle thefts are on the rise across the country. The FBI says more than 200,000 bike thefts were reported in 2014.

That's reported thefts. Experts say there are a huge number of unreported thefts. The real number is probably more than 1 million bicycles stolen every year.

Street crime has increased in most major American cities, especially with the opioid crisis. Combine this with the fact that people now buy more expensive bicycles, many in the $300 to

Portable bleachers can be towed by a lawn tractor. But cannot be towed on open roads or highways

Incorporating portable bleachers into your new facility planning or current facility renovation is a smart and highly effective strategy for stretching your seating arrangements.

The versatility, low cost and low-maintenance aspects of portable bleachers, along with the opportunity for additional, customized seating options when needed, make them a practical and common-sense choice when planning the layout for your new or renovated arena, venue, field or multi-use complex.

More and more schools, communities, and organizations are including an option for mobile aluminum bleachers in their planning for spectator seating options.

Portable bleachers utilized by Decatur City Schools

Decatur City Schools, located in Decatur Alabama, is showing the value and versatility of putting portable bleachers in their plans for a new sports complex currently under construction for Austin High School.

Portable

One of two memorial benches installed in Boulder City NV as a tribute to a student who passed away after a battle with leukemia. The message reads: "Smile More & Laugh Often.

Sometimes an entire community will pull together to create something awesome and this occurred recently in Boulder City, NV, when students came together to install memorial benches to honor one of their fallen friends.

According to teacher Azure Quinlan, one of her former students, Michael Manteris, was a very popular youngster in town who unfortunately was stricken by leukemia.

"He was well known in the community and was always kind, thoughtful and determined to succeed," she said. "When he passed away I wanted to do something special for his family and the community who loved him and prayed for him throughout his fight."

Azure thought a memorial bench might be an appropriate way to honor Michael. She said that when her mother passed away, she and her siblings purchased a memorial bench to honor her.

So she decided

This week is National Bike to Work Week. Here are some tips on how to prepare for a commute by bike

National Bike to Work Week started May 14 and if it's been said once, it's been said a thousand times: Driving to work does absolutely nothing for the betterment of your health.

For many commuters, the morning and evening commute can eat literal hours out of the day with no tangible benefits beyond having some time to one's self to catch up with a radio station or audiobook.

Comparatively, biking to work is a solid addition to a workout routine that boosts cardiovascular strength, helps tone your legs and even gets you out of your car to enjoy the world around you for a while.

If you already have a bike and a helmet ready to roll out tomorrow morning or even if you're not sure if a bike commute is feasible, it might behoove you to know some of the ups and downs of riding a bike to work before taking the plunge.

Weather prep will save you headaches

Preparing for the season to plan to ride

rotary club

The Bar Harbor Rotary Club in Maine donated recycled plastic benches and other outdoor furnishings to a local playground. Community projects such as these provide a highly visible example of the great contributions groups like this make to their communities

If your charitable organization wants to make a major impact on the community, just take a look at your local playgrounds and see if they need improvements.

That's what the Bar Harbor Rotary Club did recently in Maine when the group pulled up its sleeves, raised money, gathered volunteers and gave the Park Street Playground a much-needed facelift.

"It took many corporate sponsors, many more private donors and an army of volunteers and we are proud to now have an amazing space for our children to grow, learn and play," said organizer Jenna Horton.

The project to revise the playground was originally initiated by a local mom in 2011 but funds were slow in coming in.

So the Rotary Club decided to take on the project. Jenna

For aluminum bleachers with model numbers previously posted on the website for The Park and Facilities Catalog, please check the list below. We have expanded our product line and offer similar models of bleachers, more options and replacement parts.

Name Model No. 3 Row Aluminum Bleachers - Sideline Series - 129-1000- 129-1000 3 Row Tip and Roll Bleachers - Show and Stow Series -(call for tip and roll version) 129-1001 4 Row Aluminum Bleachers - Sideline Series - 129-2002 129-2002 5 Row Aluminum Bleachers - Midfielder Series - 129-1003 129-1003 10 Row Aluminum Bleachers - Midfielder Series - 129-1004 129-1004 15 Row Aluminum Bleachers - Midfielder Series - 129-1005 129-1005 5 Row Elevated Bleachers - Vantage Point Series - 129-1006 129-1006 10 Row Elevated Bleachers - Vantage Point Series - 129-1007 129-1007 5 Row Transportable Bleachers Series - 129-1008 129-1008

The Park and Facilities Catalog now offers a new line of top-grade aluminum bleachers that have been installed in hundreds

This is National Bike Month 2018 and a great time to reflect on the benefits of bicycling as far as health, the environment, and return on investment for investing in bike infrastructure such as bike lanes and adding more outdoor bicycle racks. These numbers will get your wheels spinning: A Huge Group of Citizens are Bicyclists: Number of people who bicycled in the US in 2016 - 45.9 million. Seniors are Hopping on their Bikes More Often: Some people are saying, "Bicycling is the new Golf." Big Trend: Bike Trips have Doubled: From 1990 to 2009, the number of bike trips in the US doubled from 1.8 to 4 billion per year. Want to Curb Childhood Obesity? Kids who bicycle are 48% less likely to be overweight as adults. Benefits for Women: Women who bike 30 minutes a day have a lower risk of breast cancer. More and More Americans are Bicycling to Work: In the past decade, US bike commuting grew 47% nationwide. Bike Community is a Huge Trend in Large Urban Areas: In large cities, the number of

Aerial view of the High Line park in NYC, elevated 30-feet above the street and filled with greenery and unique park benches to take in the sights of the city. Source: Iwan Baan/Friends of the High Line

Who would ever think you could take an old abandoned rail line, add some plants and park benches, and turn the space into one of the most visited parks on the planet?

That's exactly what happened to the High Line park in NYC on Manhattan's West Side.

Here are 10 facts that make this park so unique:

Park in the Air - It's elevated. How many parks in the world sit above the ground? You could be sitting on a park bench reading a book and there are cars  driving 30 feet below. Train in the Air - The original elevated rail line was started in 1934 to provide a safer way to transport goods, including meat, to the warehouse district in NYC. Cowboys On Horseback In NYC - That's because the rail line on the ground was so dangerous on Manhattan's West Side, that it was called "Death Avenue"

Grand Canyon National Park at sunset. (Photo from National Park Service)

America has an incredible array of parks, monuments, preserves, forts, caves, pueblos, battlefields, and missile sites all managed by our National Park Service.

Here are a few interesting facts about those parks.

Most popular, biggest and deepest parks Yellowstone National Park is not only America's first national park, it is considered the First National Park in the WORLD. This spectacular setting was established in 1872 by Congress. In 1920, there were 1 million visitors to our national parks. In 2016, there was a record-setting 331 million visitors. In 2017, it was reported that 61 of 385 reporting parks set NEW visitation records. There are actually 417 sites within the National Park Systems. All those sites cover 84,000,000 acres. The Most Popular Park in America? Not Yellowstone, Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. It's Great Smoky Mountains National Park with about 11 million visitors per year. Click here to see a

Woman relaxing on a park bench at a local park. A new resource called "ParkServe" shows the public how well their city ranks when it comes to providing parks close to people

We all know the benefits of relaxing on park benches or running around playgrounds in a local park.

Studies have repeatedly shown that sunshine, fresh air and greenery are a powerful influence on our well-being.

But what if it took 30 minutes or an hour for you to get to a park?

How often would you find yourself sitting on that park bench enjoying a view of a pond with a few ducks paddling around? How many times would a mom pack her children into a car to drive them across town to hang on the monkey bars?

Probably not too often.

The Trust for Public Funds is looking to change that paradigm and encourage cities to add more parks that people can easily reach within a 10-minute walk.

And they created a cool online tool for people to see how their cities ranks for accessible parks.

"In hundreds of cities across America

 

This Earth Day, it's important to educate people about the end result of all that recycling - the manufacturing of recycled benches, pipes, picnic tables and other items

This Earth Day, 2018, when it comes to plastics, there's some great news and there's some bad news.

Let's start with the good news. And that good news concerns plastic products known as HDPE #2 (high-density polyethylene).

HDPE is a heavy-duty plastic used to make milk jugs, detergent bottles, margarine tubs, bottles from household cleaners and cereal box liners to name a few.

Products made with the stronger HDPE plastic include milk jugs, shampoo bottles and detergent containers. Photo credit: Association of Plastic Recycler

This is a hardy type of plastic that is perfect for manufacturing sturdy, reliable products. Those products that we use every day include recycled benches, recycled picnic tables, pipes, recycled plastic trash cans and recycling bins.

More and more businesses, municipalities and schools are installing

Bike rooms, like this one at Mississippi State University, are a great strategy to encourage more bicycling than driving on campus

There are ordinary bike rooms and then there are outstanding, spacious bike rooms.

You'll find the latter in the Old Main Academic Center on the campus of Mississippi State University in Starkville, MS.

The Park and Facilities Catalog recently supplied 24 "Horseshoe" metal bicycle parking racks to an indoor bike room designed by Belinda Stewart Architects.

The entire space promotes "cycling." On a large wall in the back of the bike room, there is a huge mural of yellow bike art with the words "Bicycle Parking" painted above them in large letters.

The horseshoe racks are neatly installed in seven rows, spaced wide apart to provide plenty of room for bicyclists to park their bikes.

What's great about the horseshoe rack is that the metal tube is 35 inches high. This makes it easy for a cyclist to lock their bicycle and gives them an effective way to use three

The nation's largest school district is in New York City with nearly one million students

Largest School Districts in America

The following is a list of the Top 100 Largest School Districts in the US.

Also included is the amount of federal spending per student. Based on 2013 numbers.

Rank  Name of district State Enrollment, Fall 2013 Federal spending per student 1 New York City NY 989,012 $1,799 2 Los Angeles Unified CA 653,826 1,666 3 City of Chicago (SD 299) IL 396,641 2,036 4 Dade County FL 356,233 1,378 5 Clark County NV 320,532 889 6 Broward County FL 262,666 1,014 7 Houston ISD TX 211,552 1,484 8 Hillsborough County FL 203,439 1,395 9 Orange County FL 187,092 1,131 10 Hawaii Department of Education HI 186,825 1,682 11 Fairfax County VA 183,417 610 12 Palm Beach County FL 182,895 997 13 Gwinnett County GA 169,150 804 14 Dallas ISD TX 159,713 1,606 15 Wake County NC 153,534 645 16 Montgomery County MD 151,295 706 17 Shelby County TN 149,832 2,358 18 Charlotte-Mecklenburg NC 142,991

National parks in America are more popular than ever. In 2017, more than 331 million people visited the 379 national parks in the US, according to the National Park Service, just 90,000 short of the record set in 2016. Here are the 20 of the top national parks in the country. Please share these popular destinations with your friends (hit the share buttons at the bottom of page).

Most popular national parks include several in Utah

America has an incredible variety of landscapes in its many national parks, ranging from bursting geysers to gigantic canyons or towering forests.

Be sure to include Utah on the list of places to visit because the state is attracting a record number of visitors. Four of Utah's five national parks set records for attendance in 2017. Zion moved up from fifth place passing Yosemite and Rocky Mountain National Park. Bryce Canyon moved up to 12th with 2.6 million visitors, Arches is ranked 16th with 1.5 million visitors, Capitol Reef was 21st with 1.2 million and Canyonlands