Parks & Recreation
To increase the range of recreation opportunities available to residents and visitors.
The Town of Mount Desert is fortunate to have a national park within its boundaries. Not only does Acadia attract millions of visitors to the town, but it provides outstanding recreational opportunities for the town residents, many of whom hike, bike, ski, and picnic in the park. Mount Desert’s harbors and shores are some the most popular places for boating and kayaking in New England. The town also owns several parks that that provide additional opportunities for quiet and active enjoyment of the outdoors. These areas need to be maintained to enhance the quality of life for the people of the town.
Objectives:
1. Work to ensure there are a range of high-quality recreation opportunities in the region.
Strategies:
a. Work with the schools, local nonprofit groups, and businesses, in Mount Desert and island-wide, to increase the range of recreation facilities and opportunities available to residents throughout the year.
2. Improve the design, quality and type of safe connections (rights-of-way, trails, sidewalks, bike paths) between our town’s villages, neighborhoods, and subdivisions, in a way that promotes physical activity as a part of daily life.
Strategies:
a. Require that new residential developments in reasonable proximity to each other have bicycle and/or pedestrian connections. The type of connections should depend on where the development exists in the community – trails/rights-of-way in less dense areas and sidewalks/paths in more dense areas.
b. Improve automotive, bicycle, and pedestrian connections throughout the Mount Desert between residential neighborhoods, community facilities, recreation areas, and commercial areas. Special attention should be given to designs that improve pedestrian and bicycle safety.
c. Create a sidewalk master plan that details where these facilities should be located, what level of service they should be maintained to, and an ongoing maintenance schedule to ensure these facilities provide a safe, convenient, and comfortable alternative to automobiles in our town’s villages.
d. Whenever possible, establish bicycle lanes to make alternative transportation easier for residents and guests alike, by widening the shoulders of local roads if necessary, but preferably through creation of separate bicycle trails. Priority should be given to those investments that connect residential neighborhoods to community facilities (water access points, playfields, parks, schools, etc) and our commercial villages.
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