The nonprofit organization Trust For Public Land has once again ranked Plano's parks highly.
The Trust for Public Land’s yearly ParkScore index lists the city as having the 15th best park system in the country. In comparison, Dallas' park system ranked 53rd this year, while Fort Worth came in 86th.
Plano also has the highest-ranking park system in the state.
The ranking is based on access, acreage, amenities, equity and investment. According to the Trust for Public Land’s website, the ParkScore index is the “national gold standard” for comparing park systems. Last year, the city's park system was also ranked 15th, while in 2020, it ranked 17th. The year before that, 2019, it ranked 15th.
"We've been doing ParkScore for over ten years now, and Plano consistently ranks in the top 20 of cities that we looked at," Robert Kent of the Trust for Public Land is quoted as saying (via KRLD). "A full 77% of the city of Plano has a park within a ten-minute walk from home."
Breaking down the figure by income, 76% of high-income earners are a ten-minute walk from a park, and the same is true for 74% of both middle-income and low-income earners. The breakdown by race and ethnicity does not show a significant disparity in access.
So why are the parks in Plano so good?
"For more than 50 years, the Plano Parks and Recreation Department has strived to deliver programs and services that go above and beyond to our community," Kelley Crimmins, public relations specialist for Plano Parks and Recreation, previously told Local Profile.
"With 85 parks, nearly 100 miles of trail, and 4,300 acres of park land, the Department is committed to maintaining these parks, trails, and facilities so we can grow another 50-plus years with Plano."
