Where's Your Favorite Park in the Medford Area?

Welcome to Moms Talk, a weekly feature on Medford Patch where local parents discuss a hot-button issue. Let's jump right in with this week's question:

Medford has announced they are going to take a look at all the parks and rec spaces in the city and create a seven-year master plan. What is your favorite park/recreation resource in the area to take your kids? And what do you think the city needs, as far as parks go?

Adrienne Szafranski: Capen Park is our family favorite.  The city keeps it pretty clean, and it has sprinklers that the kids love once the weather gets warm. 

Hickey Park and Carr Park are closer for us, but they get vandalized so regularly that they aren't much fun to hang out in.  Capen has covered seating and people often use it for birthdays.  It's attractive and has sand, water, basketball court, and two climbing structures for different ages. 

For a different experience, we like to go to the Panther Cave in the Fells.  You're more likely to get parking there than at the Wright's Tower/Bellevue Pond entrance or the Sheepfold.  That's a great hike that offers some rocky terrain, a few creeks to cross, and the great rocky Panther Cave to explore and climb around.

I believe the city needs to put more money into the upkeep of the local parks.  Refresh the woodchips more frequently, repair equipment, paint over the graffiti.  I think this gets done once a year (more often if enough parents complain) but it really should be maintained maybe 3 times a year: spring, summer and just before winter. 

And once the sports teams arrive, there are portapotties, but these parks are used year round.  Can we have a place for kids who "gotta go" when it's not little league time?  This is worst at Capen, since there is no privacy for emergencies. 

So maintain the parks more regularly, and give us a place to go to the bathroom.  

Adrienne is a mom of two boys, 4ish and 6ish.  Medford resident since 2000.

Nancy Quinn: I am partial to the new Davis Sq. park in Somerville. It has a great sand area with a fun water spout crank that my kids love to play with.

Victory Park in Medford - by the high school - is also a favorite. It has a separate play area for the smaller kids - which is nice.

My ideal park for Medford is clean, has plenty of a swings, has a separate area for the smaller kids, has some sort of play water area for the Summer months, grassy area for picnics, easy parking and a blacktop or track type area where kids can ride their tricycles, bikes, etc.

Nancy has been a Medford resident for 7 years. She has two kids - 4 years and 21 months.

Tiffany Reevior: By far, our favorite summer recreation resource in Medford is Wright's Pond. 

Our favorite recreation resources this winter were the city's two ice skating rinks.  We do occasionally go to our neighborhood park, but not nearly so much now that my son is in school. 

We also love to ride our bikes together, and the biggest improvement I'd like to see in the future is more and better bike paths. 

I love the new paved and gravel paths near the Condon Shell, but the sidewalks on either side are still in disrepair, making biking with children difficult. 

I'd love to see the path along Route 16 toward Somerville re-paved, and eventually bike paths put in along the Mystic River.

Tiffany is mom to a 7-year-old and has lived in Medford since 2007.