Active Spaces

Healthy Acadia promotes community and regional projects to increase opportunities for daily healthy transportation and recreation for people of all ages. The environment around us shapes our health and our daily behavior. Impacts on our health, rising gasoline prices, and growing concern about climate change are among the factors encouraging us to find alternatives to automobile dependent sprawl. Land use and community planning to maximize access to active spaces is a process for communities to shape their spatial form and patterns of activities for long-term economic, social, and physical health. Healthy Acadia supports many opportunities to build communities in ways that support health, enhance the quality of life, and promote prosperity.

One of the many ways we can build exercise into our daily lives is through healthy modes of transportation, including walking and biking. Healthy Acadia promotes both the construction and the use of sidewalks, shoulders and paths as preferred corridors for transportation. 

Healthy recreation serves as an important way in which we can incorporate physical activity into our daily lives. Many opportunities exist throughout our region for people of all ages to participate in active recreation. Outdoor walking, biking and hiking trails are excellent resources to enjoy nature and get regular exercise at little or no cost. Community centers, YMCAs, senior Centers and schools all provide recreational opportunities at varying costs. Community organizations provide a wide range of active recreational programming, from martial arts and yoga to pilates and dancing.

Contact your local town office to learn how you can become involved in comprehensive planning, zoning, and other ways to support active spaces in your community.

Downeast Community Partners

Downeast Transportation, Inc.

Hancock County Planning Commission

Sunrise County Economic Council

Maine Department of Conservation Trails Grants

Maine Department of Transportation competitive grants for transportation alternatives


To recommend additional Active Spaces resources, please contact us.