Creating Outdoor Recreation Opportunities

"... thanks to 'Growing Greener,' Pennsylvanians will have trails for hiking and cross-country skiing with their families; a clean, clear stream for trout fishing; and pristine woods and fields to experience just as the first settlers did. We fought for 'Growing Greener' because we must protect these special open areas today, or they will be lost tomorrow... [O]nce developed, they are gone forever." -- Governor Tom Ridge at the Growing Greener signing ceremony, 12/15/1999

Walking, biking, skiing. Fishing and hunting. Playing sports, picnicking or just enjoying the quiet and peace of nature. Outdoor recreation requires open land. Growing Greener helps people acquire the green spaces needed for outdoor recreation, whether narrow ribbons of land for trails or wide open spaces for hunting. Once the land is secured, Growing Greener helps people develop the land as appropriate to the activity: playgrounds, trails, boat launches, ballfields, picnic pavilions and more.

Conserving the Land for Recreation

To create and maintain outdoor recreational opportunities for the public requires public access to open land. Growing Greener helps create this access. Examples include purchasing lands:

• To create and expand municipal and county parks.
• To establish bicycle, walking and other recreational trails, whether long multi-state trails like the Great Allegheny Passage, multi-county trails like the Pine Creek Trail or county and municipal trails.
• To provide places for the public to launch their kayaks, canoes, motorboats and the like into the Commonwealth’s rivers and streams.
• To improve the public’s recreational experiences by securing lands surrounded by or bordered by State Parks and Forests that could otherwise undergo development inconsistent with good public recreation.
• To improve hunting opportunities by expanding State Game Lands.

Building Recreational Facilities

Growing Greener helps people develop and upgrade recreational facilities: Examples include:

• Installation of playground equipment, ballfields, picnic pavilions and other park amenities.
• Construction of trails like the Great Allegheny Passage, the Pine Creek Trail and county and municipal trails.
• Development of public boat launches into rivers and streams.