Abstract
Many cities have replaced abandoned transportation infrastructure with an elevated park to gain increased economic benefits by developing old fabric. By following this trend, most studies to this point have only focused on the economic rewards from the replacement rather than its uses in the real world. This study aims to understand how park visitors use elevated parks through a park visitors’ survey. The authors selected three representative elevated parks—the High Line in New York City, the 606 in Chicago, and the High Bridge in Farmville—for the study and asked visitors about their activities, perceived benefits, and satisfaction. Results indicate that the 606, a mixed-use elevated park, allows visitors to engage in high-intensity activity, the High Line as an elevated urban park provides visitors public arts and gardens, and the High Bridge as an elevated green park provided visitors with a connection to unique natural scenery. This study, as the first to compare three different elevated parks, contributes to an understanding of who uses elevated parks and how they use elevated parks.
Highlights
Due to the changes in modes of transportation [1,2] and the phenomena of shrinking cities [3,4], transportation infrastructure in many places have become obsolete and are becoming brownfields [5].Recently, several cities, such as New York City, Chicago, and Seoul, have replaced abandoned transportation infrastructure with a park to serve the recreation needs of the citizens
TheseBased conceptual this origins, study defines an localand landscapes and promote physical exercise on theseorigins, conceptual this study elevated park as an open connects multiple areasmultiple of a cityareas or neighborhood that was built defines an elevated parkspace as anthat open space that connects of a city or neighborhood above thebuilt ground level, facilitates physical and social activities, and provides that was above thewhich ground level, which facilitates physical and social activities,environmental and provides services
Most visitors of the High Bridge gladly participated in the survey, because of its rural setting, the total visitors to the park were less than 80 visitors on a weekday, which was remarkably lower than other elevated parks
Summary
Due to the changes in modes of transportation [1,2] and the phenomena of shrinking cities [3,4], transportation infrastructure in many places have become obsolete and are becoming brownfields [5]. Korea [12,19], have attempted to determine the economic benefits of these new parks, mainly focused on tax revenues and property value. Based on these economic studies, many cities are looking to develop elevated parks. The objective of this study is to (1) identify elevated park visitor characteristics, (2) illustrate differences between three different types of elevated parks, and (3) provide design implications for future elevated parks. To answer these questions, the authors selected three.
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