Public Access Site Development
By 2025, add 300 new public access sites, with a strong emphasis on providing opportunities for boating, swimming and fishing, where feasible.
Progress
Recent Progress: Increase
In 2023, eight new public access sites were added (three in Maryland, three in Pennsylvania and two in Virginia). West Virginia is one of the most recent signatories to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement and, in 2023, discovered 29 sites that were not previously counted. This brings the total to 285 public access sites that have opened on and around the Chesapeake Bay since 2010, marking a 95% achievement of the partnership’s goal to add 300 new access sites to the watershed by 2025. This constitutes increasing progress.
Outlook: On Course
The Public Access Outcome is on course and is expected to be met by 2025. The long-term average number of sites added each year remains above the 20-per-year target necessary to meet the 2025 goal. To reach the 300-site goal, just 15 sites are needed in the remaining two years.
Public Access Sites in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (Cumulative) (2010-2023)
Public Access Site Ownership in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (2009-2023)
Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania have seen the biggest increases in access sites over the past 10 years. This is not surprising, as the bulk of the Chesapeake Bay watershed—as well as existing access sites and opportunities for new access sites—lies within these states. In total there are 1,424 public access sites throughout the watershed. There are currently 646 public access sites in Maryland, 407 in Virginia, 221 in Pennsylvania, 77 in West Virginia, 40 in New York, 25 in the District of Columbia and eight in Delaware.
In addition to meeting the goal of 300 sites by 2025, our partners are focused on improving existing public access sites by adding ADA accessible features and multilingual signs, where feasible, to meet the needs of diverse communities.
Public access to open space and waterways can improve public health and quality of life. People rely on outdoor places to exercise, relax and recharge their spirits. Time spent outdoors can strengthen family bonds; nurture active, creative children; and help people build personal connections with places in the region. Access to waterways can boost tourism, economic development and stewardship. To find a public access site near you, visit ChesapeakeBay.net or the websites for specific jurisdictions: Delaware, New York, Maryland (boating, fishing), Pennsylvania (boating, fishing), Virginia (boating, fishing), West Virginia (stream access, hunting/fishing) and Washington DC.
Management Strategy
To achieve this outcome, Chesapeake Bay Program partners have committed to:
- Advocating for prioritizing public funding for public access.
- Assessing urban access issues and needs.
- Addressing accessibility issues and needs.
- Enhancing public access for a diverse population and ensuring all watershed residents have reasonable access to the water.
- Conducting detailed assessments of, and designs for, potential access sites.
- Incorporating proposed access sites into state and local outdoor recreation and open space plans.
- Preventing the loss of access on public rights-of-way.
- Engaging in hydropower relicensing processes to expand public access.
- Exploring the potential for additional access on public lands.
- Managing land control for water access using various land acquisition techniques.
- Determining how site planning and development can be adapted to address the impacts of climate change.
- Building opportunities for community stewardship and maintenance of access sites.
These partners will also collaborate with the work being done to achieve the Stewardship, Diversity, Climate Adaptation and Climate Monitoring and Assessment outcomes.
Monitoring and assessing progress toward the outcome will occur through the annual tracking of new public access sites, which can include the development of a new boating, swimming, fishing, or water viewing access facility on a new site or the development of a new type of access facility at an existing site.
As part of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s partnership-wide implementation of adaptive management, progress toward this outcome was reviewed and discussed by the Management Board in March of 2024.
Logic & Action Plan
Chesapeake Bay Program partners have committed to taking a series of specific actions that will support the management approaches listed above.
Ongoing
- Identifying potential public access sites that would fill gaps and mark progress toward this outcome.
- Targeting financial assistance programs to support site development and establish the need for accessibility in the development of new public access.
- Maintaining and upgrading public access sites on U.S. Department of Defense installations where site security allows.
- Working with state departments of transportation to create or enhance public access opportunities in conjunction with transportation projects that cross over or are located next to waterways.
- Enhancing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice screening and mapping tool.
- Using proximity analysis and other tools to determine approximate distances between population and public access sites.
- Providing technical assistance to partners in public access site development to aid in site assessment, planning, design and permitting.
- Involving state agencies in hydropower relicensing processes.
- Encouraging federal and state agency partners to evaluate opportunities for additional public access sites on lands under their control, especially when site or resource management plans are updated.
- Helping local governments and nongovernmental organizations exercise appropriate land use controls when acquiring public access sites.
- Reviewing road or public rights-of-way abandonment plans to ensure those with public access opportunities are not lost.
- Encouraging the incorporation of statewide comprehensive outdoor recreational plan recommendations into local and regional public access plans.
Recently Completed
2024
- Updated the annual work plan, management strategy and other documents that detail the Public Access Workgroup activities associated with the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.
2023
- Completed the annual inventory of new public access sites in the Chesapeake Bay watershed with 8 sites opened in 2023. State agencies provided financial and technical assistance to state, local and federal government partners in the provision of new public access sites.
Participating Partners
The Fostering Chesapeake Stewardship Goal Implementation Team leads the effort to achieve this outcome. It works in partnership with the Healthy Watersheds Goal Implementation Team.
Participating partners include:
- State of Delaware
- State of Maryland
- State of New York
- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
- Commonwealth of Virginia
- State of West Virginia
- District of Columbia
- Chesapeake Bay Commission
- National Park Service
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- U.S. Department of Defense
- U.S. Forest Service