Public parks and the pandemic: how park usage has been affected by COVID-19 policies

Public parks serve an important societal function as recreational spaces
for diverse communities of people, with well documented physical and
mental health benefits. As such, parks may be crucial for how people have
handled effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the increasingly
limited recreational opportunities, widespread financial uncertainty, and
consequent heightened anxiety. Despite the documented benefits of parks,
however, many states have instituted park shutdown orders due to fears
that public parks could facilitate SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Here we use
geotagged social media data from state, county, and local parks throughout
New Jersey to examine whether park visitation increased when the COVID-19
pandemic began and whether park shutdown orders were effective at
deterring park usage. We compare park usage during four discrete stages of
spring 2020: (1) before the pandemic began, (2) during the beginning of
the pandemic, (3) during the New Jersey governor’s state-wide park
shutdown order, and (4) following the lifting of the shutdown. We find
that park visitation increased by 63.4% with the onset of the pandemic.
The subsequent park shutdown order caused visitation in closed parks to
decline by 76.1% while parks that remained open continued to experience
elevated visitation levels. Visitation then returned to elevated
pre-shutdown levels when closed parks were allowed to reopen. Altogether,
our results indicate that parks continue to provide crucial services to
society, particularly in stressful times when opportunities for recreation
are limited. Furthermore, our results suggest that policies targeting
human behavior can be effective and are largely reversible. As such, we
should continue to invest in public parks and to explore the role of parks
in managing public health and psychological well-being.