Syracuse University Lerner Center Implements “Monday Mile” Community Health Program

The Surgeon General recommends that able-bodied adults participate in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity movement each week; but for many adults this goal can be hard to meet, which is why walking or other low-impact exercises are important to maintaining an overall healthy lifestyle.

The Syracuse University Lerner Center  adopted the Monday Mile program and materials to improve the accessibility of walking routes in two counties located around the Syracuse area in upstate New York.

In Onondaga County, Move it Monday and The Lerner Center coordinated with both city and county parks departments as well as the Syracuse Department of Public Works to facilitate the installation of permanent Monday Mile signage, identifying 18 one-mile walking routes across the county. These paths were strategically located near city parks, universities, business districts, and medical centers for ease of usage.

A similar approach was taken in Madison County, where five Monday-Mile routes were installed throughout previously identified at-risk communities. Similar to Onondaga, these routes were deliberately positioned around accessible areas such as a school campus, business district, rail trail, town square, and local park.

Move it Monday provided signage templates that aligned with program goals and matched the surrounding environmental aesthetic. This eventually led to the instillation of permanent signage to identify the routes and provide distance markers and directional arrows.

With a higher proportion of disabled residents than the national average, the communities in Onondaga and Madison County reaped considerable benefits from having accessible and safe Monday Mile routes to use throughout the year.

Read more about the programming and research the Syracuse Lerner Center team has done to help other organizations implement a successful Monday Mile.