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What is Park Maintenance?

Phil Shepley
Phil Shepley

Many public and private parks and facilities exist for many leisure activities and other uses. There are many ways these parks must be maintained, including trash pickup, landscaping, fixing broken playground equipment and keeping trails in usable shape. Typically, people must be assigned to do the work associated with maintaining parks; these people commonly work for a city or county government office.

Every kind of park requires park maintenance, and some need more than others. The main factor that determines the quantity of work that needs to be done is typically the number of people who use the park. Another factor is the kind of park it is, including playgrounds, nature preserves, athletic facilities, trails, beaches, bodies of water, and others. The main type of park maintenance that usually needs to be done, regardless of the variety of park, is trash pickup and cleanup.

Trail cleanup is an important aspect of park maintenance.
Trail cleanup is an important aspect of park maintenance.

The purpose of most park maintenance is to preserve the aesthetics of the park, which can include the landscaping and its surrounding areas. People in charge of keeping a park or facility maintained will often have to rebuild any of a number of its broken or worn-down elements. A common example along these lines is when a playground has broken equipment; not only is it unavailable for use, but it may pose a serious safety threat to children who attempt to use it. Other safety issues can include broken fences or obstructions on a path; such problems generally are considered a maintenance priority.

Playground equipment, such as a seesaw, must be routinely checked to ensure it's in good working condition.
Playground equipment, such as a seesaw, must be routinely checked to ensure it's in good working condition.

Park maintenance may include the building of more facilities or even the addition of natural structures, such as man-made lakes or new nature trails. For community-owned parks, the money for doing new kinds of work often comes from public works funds that have been allocated by the government that oversees the park. This money can come from taxes, donations, and fees to use the facilities. The cost to maintain a private park depends on how many people are employed to maintain it and what type of maintenance is involved. A water park, for example, could have higher maintenance costs than a small park with a playground.

Park maintenance includes trash pickup.
Park maintenance includes trash pickup.

Park maintenance workers can be employed publicly or privately. Parks can fall under the jurisdiction of a city, county, state, country, or private entity. The duration that a worker will maintain a park depends mainly on who owns the park, whether or not the park is open year-round, and the type of maintenance that must be done.

Discussion Comments

pleonasm

One of the things about working in a park is that you always have to be on your best behavior as well.

People will come up and ask you all kinds of things, and sometimes they might even need your help.

A lot of things can happen outdoors, particularly if you are in a national park.

That said, most of the park employees I've ever talked to have been the soul of courtesy to me.

There was a man using what looked to me like a flamethrower on the edges of the lawns at our local park the other day and he didn't mind explaining it at all to me.

It was apparently a standard piece of park maintenance equipment, and was used to keep back weeds when they couldn't use herbicide.

browncoat

One of my friends used to do trail maintenance in a nature preserve every summer. He said it was the thing that really made him grow up, that he hadn't appreciated the worth of doing hard physical work until then.

They would bury large stones in places where the trail needed reinforcing and would cut back trees and plants which were overgrowing it. He said it took a while to get used to it, because it was such hard work and the people were tough people, but the group who worked together became very close and that it was one of the best times of his life.

I think that most young adults should have to do a job like this. Kind of like compulsory military training, with the benefits of that, and not so much risk.

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    • Trail cleanup is an important aspect of park maintenance.
      By: Pavel Losevsky
      Trail cleanup is an important aspect of park maintenance.
    • Playground equipment, such as a seesaw, must be routinely checked to ensure it's in good working condition.
      By: Tammy Mobley
      Playground equipment, such as a seesaw, must be routinely checked to ensure it's in good working condition.
    • Park maintenance includes trash pickup.
      By: theyok
      Park maintenance includes trash pickup.