Tennessee Riverpark & the Riverwalk

If you only use one public space in this city, it is this one. The Riverwalk runs thirteen paved miles along the Tennessee, connecting downtown to Chickamauga Dam eight miles east and to St. Elmo four miles south, and it is open around the clock - the only entrance with published hours is the stretch behind Chattanooga State, which runs first light to dark.

Hamilton County publishes the distance between every pair of access points, which is the sort of thing that makes a park usable rather than merely nice: Walnut Street Bridge to Coolidge is 0.56 miles, to Ross's Landing 0.42, the Rowing Center to Walnut Street 1.50, Chickamauga Dam to the Fishing Park 1.44.

It is a genuinely accessible park rather than one that claims to be. The county lists it ADA accessible and describes a family friendly paved multi-use greenway, motorised vehicles are barred except wheelchairs, and the one honest warning on the page is that a section of the trail is only eight feet wide.

Along it: playgrounds, four picnic shelters, fishing piers, boat ramps, a kayak launch, bike rentals, bike repair stations, grills and restrooms. No camping. Shelters run $50 to $125 to reserve; everything else costs nothing.

It is jointly run, which matters if you are chasing an answer: the county manages the whole, and the city manages the section from Battery Place through St. Elmo, including Ross's Landing and Coolidge Park.