A number of city councillors are proposing an “urban trails program” that would increase connections between green spaces across the city, add trails and signage along the way, and implement a number of other features. 

The proposal was made at a recent hearing held by the Council’s Committee on Environmental Justice, Resiliency, and Parks. The plan would add extensions to the existing “Walking City Trail,” a 27-mile stretch of connected pathways that starts at the Neponset River Reservation and stretching to the Bunker Hill Monument.

Councillor Kendra Lara, the chair of the committee whose office hosted public hikes along the Walking City Trail last year, said an expanded system would allow residents to see “the city in a way most people have never before” by exposing hikers to “small businesses, public art, and cultural institutions” in the neighborhoods. 

Miles Howard, one of the Walking City Trail founders, said the pathways have helped to enliven formerly unused green spaces in the city. The proposed additions, if approved, would help to “show people a full spectrum of existing green spaces and the possibility of what green spaces could look like in every Boston neighborhood,” he said. 

The goal, proponents say, is to take users through the city’s unique neighborhoods, including communities that don’t often get a lot of foot traffic.

“It would create new cross pollination between different neighborhoods that previously remained separated by historical barriers,” Howard said.

An expanded urban trail program would also address environmental injustice in the city, helping to tear down historically defined barriers that have limited disadvantaged individuals from access to green spaces, the councillors said.

Lara, who represents Jamaica Plain, said the proposed expansions could be “one more opportunity to reclaim Black space in green space.”

She added that “low-income communities and communities of color have been, and continue to be, disproportionately exposed to and impacted by environmental racism. As a Black woman who got introduced to hiking by Black elders, I want to make sure the implementation of this and other trails keeps racial justice at the center.”

Lara, along with fellow sponsoring councillors Kenzie Bok and Gabriella Coletta, also proposed ensuring sufficient signage on the Walking City Trail, noting that users are often unaware of where the trail begins or ends.

The committee is expected to hold more hearings on the urban trails program, Lara’s office said.