Philly’s best parks are a SEPTA ride away, and ‘Getting to Green: Routes to Roots’ has the map for it

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Mural Arts Philadelphia’s “Getting to Green: Routes to Roots” project has updated its free hand-painted map of ways to reach local green spaces by public transportation, and has begun rolling it out to commuters. 

The project’s new map has more than tripled the number of parks listed and also added an adventure card deck to help inform and inspire Philadelphians about the many parks they can access.

“We wanted to make it so that wherever you are in the city, there’s a park you could get to,” said Shira Walinsky, the project’s co-lead artist alongside Laura Deutch.

Along with new hand-painted illustrations by Walinsky, the new map’s expanded number of parks includes smaller green spaces like Center City’s Rail Park and West Philly’s Clark Park, as well as larger standouts like FDR Park and Pennypack Park. 

The illustrations highlight one standout flora, fauna or landmark visitors can see at the venue, like a red-shouldered hawk at Cobbs Creek, the wooden slide at Smith Memorial Playground, or the goats at Awbury Arboretum. 

The 35 parks are evenly distributed across six large areas of the city, and each has the transit routes listed for getting there.

The back of the map includes interviews with SEPTA bus drivers, tapping into their transit insights and favorite memories.

Along with the map, Getting to Green has created a supplemental deck of cards, one for each park listed on the map. Each card includes the park’s address, the transit routes that take you there, its highlights and amenities and even contact information for the groups that help take care of it.

Part of the project’s inception involved working with immigrant and refugee communities that were new to Philly and didn’t yet know where the city’s parks were. To that end, the maps and cards have some text translated into up to eight languages. 

The multidisciplinary art project was funded through a grant from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission that ended in June. It has been carried out with support from SEPTA and is up to date with changes made by the transportation agency’s first phase of its “New Bus Network” last month.

Walinsky said she noticed that the additions to SEPTA’s frequent bus routes — also marked in red on the project’s map — had resulted in quicker access to some parks on routes like 21, 57 and 64.

Getting to Green launched publicly in June 2023 and released its previous map in 2024. Along with the maps, the project has installed bus wraps and bus-stop posters with maps, organized group bus rides to promote exploration, distributed handouts with facts and scavenger-hunt prompts, held pop-up events and produced a video series featuring conversations with commuters.

The maps and cards are already available at the Free Library of Philadelphia, PhillyCAM and Cherry Street Pier. They will soon be available at Mural Arts Philadelphia and select SEPTA stations. Walinsky said that the group also plans to distribute them at events where it  tables and through park groups around the city.

You can follow Getting to Green’s event schedule on its website or through the group’s Instagram page. 

Walinsky said researching the artwork and speaking with the people who rely on both SEPTA and the city’s many diverse green spaces has helped her build a broader awareness of the city she’s from.

“The more you learn about one aspect of the natural world that we’re connected to the more you want to find out and I think it’s exciting, it’s thrilling and the bus will take you there,” she said.