Subclassifications: bridging facilities

Bridging facilities are a subclassification within the special feature category. They may be nested within a regional park, park reserve, or trail. They seek to attract and introduce new outdoor recreation users to the Regional Parks and Trails System. Their purpose is to help address inequities that contribute to lower participation rates among prioritized communities.  

Bridging facilities have a clear and unique purpose. Bridging facilities are not designed as a one-size-fits-all approach. They introduce new visitors to the parks and trails system across race, ethnicity, national origin, income, ability, and age; as well as encourage greater participation by the future stewards of our region’s natural and recreation resources – young adults, teenagers, and children.  

Use: Bridging facilities are designed to prototype new ideas that advance equitable usage, focusing on underserved groups in the Regional Parks and Trails System. These facilities engage people with the wide array of opportunities that exist across the system through interests, innovative strategies, and collaboration. Bridging facilities seek to build on community strengths, establishing partnerships with the communities they intend to better serve.

Service Area: Bridging facilities serve a specific community or communities. For example, a city or a specific group. When planning for bridging facilities, implementing agencies will identify the population(s) to be better served and the inequities that will be addressed, working directly with the community to create, design, and develop them.

Site Attributes: Bridging facilities may:  

• Be a stand-alone facility or network of facilities, located in an area not currently well-served by existing regional parks, park reserves, and trails. “Stand-alone” bridging facilities that exist outside of a regional park, park reserve, special feature, or trail, are eligible for Regional Parks System funding, as permitted through the appropriate state laws and statutes.
• Be nested within an existing regional park, park reserve, special feature, or trail, welcoming new users to the unit and then connecting them with the opportunities that the broader facility provides.  
• Have a mobile element to allow outreach to extend beyond the existing boundaries of the Regional Parks and Trails System, going into communities that have been historically underserved. Mobile elements may be temporarily housed in a partner facility, such as a local park, school, or nonprofit organization. Mobile bridging programming must be connected to a base regional park or trail system facility and will need to articulate, track, and report their results. Participants in mobile programming events outside of a regional unit are not counted as part of the annual use estimate.  
• Include a programmatic element embedded in a partner facility, such as a school or nonprofit organization, allowing the implementing agency to access and build on the organization’s existing relationships with communities.  

Size: The size of a bridging facility is dependent on the feature itself.  

Site location: Bridging facilities are located close to their target audience, which includes historically underserved communities.

Funding: Bridging facilities must have a long-range plan that is approved by the Met Council to request funding. Implementing agencies proposing a bridging facility will:

• Provide a clear statement of purpose for what it is intended to accomplish, consistent with the above defined purpose, recognizing that these facilities will differ within and across agencies, and must evolve and change over time, in order to stay relevant and effective
• Include a plan for an awareness-building, programming, or marketing component, to promote regional parks and trails to users facing obstacles to access the Regional Parks and Trails System  
• Provide a programming plan through park agency staff or through a partnership arrangement.  
• Only bridging facilities that are designated as a unit of the regional system or are nested within an existing unit of the Regional Parks and Trails System will be included in the annual use estimate.