Bicycle Friendly Business Bronze Sea

The Park and Facilities Catalog is proud to announce that it was recently recognized with a Bronze Bicycle Friendly Business award by the League of American Bicyclists for its bike parking rack advocacy and support for more bike lanes and other bicycling improvements in general.

Nearly 1,200 small businesses, government agencies, and Fortune 500 companies across the United States have earned the award for their commitment to bicycle advocacy.

Businesses range from local shops that host biking events all the way up to larger businesses like The Park Catalog and The Coca-Cola Company. Coca-Cola is also a new inductee, supporting bicycle infrastructure in Atlanta to help employees bike to their company headquarters.

"The business community's investment in bicycling is playing a central role in making the country a safer, happier, and more sustainable place to live and work," said Amelia Neptune, League Bicycle Friendly Business Program Manager. "We applaud

Park bench in Olmsted-designed Central Par

By Alysa Kleinman

Next time you visit your local park and relax on any park benches, you can thank Frederick Olmsted.

It's a name you might not immediately recognize from history class, but he's considered the father of American landscape and park design. His contributions during his lifetime spanned from Central Park to Niagara Falls, to parks in Midwestern cities like Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit, to the U.S. Capitol, and all the way out to Stanford University in Palo Alto. His contributions beyond his lifetime are un-measurable.

Setting the bar for excellence in park design very high, Olmsted's designs for Central Park continue to influence landscape architecture to this day. But to fully understand Olmsted's impact and how he reached it, you have to hear his full career path that led to his influence over such well-known parks.

A Traveling Writer

Raised in Hartford, Connecticut by his nature-loving father John and step-mother Mary Ann

Pupils on a school benc

It's back to school time and when you think about the sheer numbers of K-12 students in the US, these kids will need quite a few school benches, school picnic tables, bleachers and bike racks.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the fall of 2015, there were 50.1 million students sitting in public elementary and secondary schools. That doesn't even count all the private schools out there. For non-public schools, estimates run as high as five million more pupils.

The public school numbers break down to 35 million in pre-K through eighth grade. Another 15 million are in grades 9 through 12.

To manage that nation of students, you need an army of teachers. The center reports there are 3.1 million full-time teachers. That works out to a student/teacher ratio of 16:1. For private schools, the ratio is lower at 12.5:1.

School benc

In 2012-2103 there were approximately 98,500 public schools which includes 6,100 charter schools. In the fall of

The Underline park drawing proposed for Brickell Station in Miami. (Source: James Corner Field Operations, Courtesy of Friends of The Underline.

Meg Daly walked home from a train station in Miami one day and had an inspiration that could change how people look at parks in the future.

First of all, she wasn't looking at the ground. She looked up. At the Metrorail mass transit line running overhead and realized that the concrete structure holding the tracks created a nice shady spot below.

For anybody who has ever lived or visited Florida, you know shade is precious. Meg had an idea - if there are miles of shade underneath Metrorail, wouldn't this make a great elongated park where people could walk, bicycle or relax?

"I lived in Miami my whole life and never really experienced that moment under the Metrorail. In that moment I realized just how much land was there," she said. "I thought, 'Why don't we do something spectacular with this space and return it to the people?"

Current look of area

These plastic bottles don't need to be here - they can become recycled plastic picnic tables and any number of products

By Alysa Kleinman

About 270 million Americans visit national parks each year. They explore mountains and woods, see wildlife firsthand and discover culture. But along the way, they also generate 100 million pounds of trash. That's could fill quite a few recycling receptacles and park trash cans.

What can be done to solve this problem where visitors come to a park to enjoy the natural splendor but generate more than a third of a pound of trash per person?

Recently, Subaru started studying trash at national parks. The company's research in Denali, Yosemite, and Grand Teton National Parks tested an innovative waste-reduction recycling program and zero-landfill practices.

While it may seem unexpected for an auto maker to be involved in environmental issues, Subaru's company practices are very green. In fact, Subaru is America's first zero-landfill auto maker, meaning that

 

As barbecuing grows in popularity, facility managers would be smart to add bigger park grill

By Gerald Dlubala

The plumes of smoke from state and local parks, recreation areas and gathering places reach toward the sky carrying that familiar aroma of meat being introduced on park grills.

And everywhere you turn, there's going to be an amateur pitmaster firing up that park grill in the hopes of producing competition-worthy food for his friends and family.

In fact, many families now have their own yearly competitions just to lay claim as the pitmaster of the year.

Public parks are natural places for these family gatherings, as well as reunions, holiday get-togethers and special occasions.

Why wouldn't they be?

The availability of park grills, pavilions, picnic benches, the wide-open spaces and the fresh outdoor air are all attractive and conducive to both organized activities and impromptu gatherings.

Park grills in greater demand with boom in barbecuing

The rise in popularity in the barbecue

Cristan Hassan Acosta Villafane teaches woman to ride a bike provided by Bikes for the World (Source: All photographs supplied courtesy of BikesfortheWorld.org)

Bicycling for most Americans is a leisure activity. Something we do on weekends or evenings.  We often take bicycles for granted.

But in Third World countries, a bicycle can be a game-changer - a tool for earning a living, attending school, or saving a life.  Farmers can carry their produce to market.  Tradesmen can carry their tools over a wider service area and earn more.

Students living at a distance from school can get there quicker, on time, and with more energy to learn.   Health workers serving low-income communities can move from household to household faster, carrying more medications and serving more patients.

That's where Bikes for the World comes in.  This growing charity's mission is to collect usable bicycles in the United States, and donate them around the globe to programs serving and raising the productivity

ADA picnic tables help people with disabilities feel free to participate in more activitie

Everyone is welcome to sit at picnic tables at a community park or outside a facility. But what if you are disabled? Should you be excluded or made to feel like you are not part of the group? Absolutely not. That's where ADA picnic tables come in.

But without accessible equipment, facility managers can inadvertently exclude guests with disabilities.

That's why facility managers need to be ADA compliant and think of all guests, including those whose needs are different from your own.

What are ADA picnic tables?

The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted by Congress to protect against discrimination based on disability and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for disabled employees. Additionally, and maybe most relevant to facility managers, ADA imposed accessibility requirements on public accommodations and commercial facilities. For one, that means offering park

Recycled Plastics Facts and Figure

Recycled Plastics Infographi

Note: The following infographic is brought to you by The Park and Facilities Catalog.

From Earth Day through May, The Park and Facilities Catalog is donating a portion of ALL sales of recycled park benches, recycled picnic tables and recycled trash receptacles to the Everglades Foundation.

Click here to view our entire line of recycled plastic outdoor furniture, including our TEC42 commercial site furnishings with 50-year warranties!

These plastic bottles don't need to be here - they can become recycled plastic picnic tables and any number of products

Happy Earth Day fellow Earthlings! How will you honor the Earth this year? Recycling, cleaning up litter or writing to your congressmen are all a good start. But there's an essential part of going green that many people overlook: supporting recycling efforts by buying recycled products that range from recycled plastic picnic tables to paper for your copy machine.

The key to recycling is the reuse of our natural resources. That process starts with gathering recyclable materials. Offices and homes across America take the extra effort to have special recycling bins for paper, plastic, aluminum, glass, and other materials. They carefully educate themselves on proper recycling and their efforts aren't wasted—they successfully avoid overflowing landfills.

After recycled scrap is collected, companies manufacture a huge variety of recycled goods.

Recycled newspaper

How Walton County improved their bike infrastructure and added custom bike racks to attract more bicycling tourists

Josh Ervin, the Beach Maintenance Manager with Walton County custom bike rack

What makes a destination community special? Is it just beaches and mountains? Or is there something else going on that gives you a sense this place is truly different. For example, you may notice how easy a town makes it to get around and interact with all their beautiful scenery.

One great way to do that is with a solid bicycling infrastructure - bike lanes, bicycle parking racks (in South Walton's case - custom bike racks) and accessibility to plenty of rental bikes or bike share programs.

South Walton in the Florida Panhandle is such a place. It's located on the gulf, just west of Panama City, where spectacularly bright "sugar" quartz sand meets a calm turquoise-colored sea. This stretch of beach is called the "Emerald Coast" and it truly is one of the crown jewels of America's coastlines.

There's

The Park Catalog is donating part of sales of recycled plastic benches and other products to the Everglades Foundation for Earth Da

Many people think the Everglades covering the southern half of Florida is nothing more than a massive swamp filled with alligators, mosquitoes and Burmese pythons. But it's so much more. And there are groups such as the Everglades Foundation doing their best to protect this precious and unique ecosystem.

Here are a few important  and interesting facts about this unique land mass compiled by the Everglades Foundation and other sources:

- The Everglades are more than just Everglades National Park. The ecosystem actually covers millions of acres stretching from Orlando and the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee down to Florida Bay by the Florida Keys. Everglades National Park only makes up about 1.5 million acres, or 20% of the original Everglades area.

- Yes the Everglades is actually a river - a slow moving "River of Grass" as author Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Top 20 National Parks Based on Visitors in 2015

This is National Park Week in the United States (April 16-24). A great time to appreciate the spectacular national wonders that we are blessed with in this country. Here is a list of the Top 20 National Parks based on visitors in 2015. Please share this with your friends (just hit share buttons at bottom of the page.)

Top 20 National Parks 201

As an added bonus, during the week, the US National Park Service is opening up all national parks for free admission! There are some changes in rankings from last year. Click here to see last year's Top 20 National Parks.

Note: The Park and Facilities Catalog is a strong advocate for national, state and local parks. Our staff has visited nearly every national park in the country.

As a business, we are a national supplier of park furnishings such as park benches to parks around the country and commercial site furnishings to retail centers and offices. See our full selection of furnishings that are

Bike parking racks and cycling can help cut traffic jams like this at the Brooklyn Bridg

By Gerald Dlubala

Bike parking racks are more than just a place to lock a bike. They can have a substantial positive effect on saving cities a ton of money when it comes to overcrowded streets.

 "The overall economic impact is greatest in the U.S. where the estimated cumulative cost of traffic congestion by 2030 will be $2.8 trillion."

That's the findings of INRIX, a traffic intelligence and movement analysis company, in conjunction with The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). In a recent study of traffic and congestion predictions, it was determined that the cost of traffic congestion will grow substantially, up to a 50% increase by the year 2030.

Staggering numbers to say the least, but additionally, on an individual basis, congestion-related costs are already up to an estimated $1,740 per person and are expected to jump 60% by 2030. Much of this cost has to do with time wasted in

The unique Gas Works Park in Seattle, WA, one of the parks featured in "10 Parks That Changed America

Put in your calendar the date for a new PBS documentary called, "10 Parks That Changed America."

The landmarks followed in the documentary represent an eclectic look at the different styles and influences of these parks in American history.

The "10 Parks that Changed America" are: The Squares of Savannah, GA Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, PA Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA Central Park, New York City, NY Chicago's Neighborhood Parks, Chicago, IL The River Walk, San Antonio, TX Overton Park, Memphis, TN Freeway Park, Seattle, WA Gas Works Park, Seattle, WA The High Line, New York City, NY

Each of these 10 parks has a unique story to tell.

For example, as we wrote in a previous blog, Central Park has 9,000 benches. Many of them contain messages from sponsors that cover a gamut of proposals, memorials and just witty sayings.

This massive park surrounded by a sea of concrete and steel is