If you rented a Zipcar and headed to the nearest National Park, San Francisco Bay Area locals would have to travel the farthest in California.
Northern California is a wonderland of nature scapes. Redwoods and marine layers endemic butterflies and biophilic vistas define much of the region; San Francisco is, without much contention, often considered America’s most beguiling large metro. SF also has the nation’s densest collection of public parks — no San Franciscan (or tourist) is further than about a 10-minute walk from a City-maintained greenspace.
Suffice it to say NorCal residents are not exactly anemic for examples of Mother Nature. But they are, somewhat shockingly, void of proximity to National Parks.
In a recent Instagram post by Amazing Maps, the collective behind maps meant to “grab your attention,” shared an extrapolated survey illustrating how far away you are at any one point in the United States from a National Park.
The nation’s largest and longest “National Park desert’ is represented by a red smear from Texas’s Gulf Coast region that curves up like a bent spin toward Ohio’s Northwest and Northeast regions. More unignorable areas void of National Park access are the entire state of New York and basically the whole Gulf Coast region.
Per the map, areas marked in red are at least 400 miles from the nearest National Park; conversely, areas colored in blue are less than 100 miles from a National Park; the gradient for the map is measured from 0 to 400 miles, and colors representing that incline range in hues of blue, green, yellow, orange, and red, respectfully.
Californians are pretty fortunate; there’s almost no area in the state where you’re more than 100 miles from a national park; in fact, most of California is within the blue proximity zone of at least one National Park. But an outlier to the latter observation is how far away those in the San Francisco Bay Area are from a National Park.
Zooming the lens out further, it appears the SF Bay Area region is California’s largest National Park desert. (Mind you, Bay Area locals do have access to many National Park Service-managed lands — Alcatraz and Point Reyes are both, for example, operated by the National Park Service — but parks, however, are hours away by car.)
The closest National Park to the region is Pinnacles National Park at about a 123-mile drive; Yosemite National Park — considered the crowning jewel of the National Park Service — isn’t much further at about a 175-mile drive.
The fate of our country’s greenspaces, including its collection of National parks, remains vulnerable. The ever-worsening climate crisis threatens the very existence of our endemic landscapes, including the endemic flora and fauna they hold; state and local budgets for parks and outdoor recreational areas are among the first to be cut amid larger deficits; former prescient Trump infamously rolled back over 100 climate policies and lead the United States in leaving the Paris Accord — and, should he be elected, he’s likely to take his climate change as “the biggest hoax in history” rhetoric to new damaging heights.
We’re all fortunate enough to live among such natural marvels. If possible, take public transit or mass transit to a nearby National Park … or, if you are driving, rent an EV or hybrid vehicle … and for the love of Mother Nature, vote “no” to a future Trump Presidency.
Feature image: Courtesy of Amazing Maps via Instagram
