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Regional park survey helps determine funding

Don’t be surprised if you’re stopped by an interviewer this summer when you visit a regional park. The Metropolitan Council is doing its decennial survey of park visitation to determine where park visitors come from, how they get there and what activities bring them to the park or trail they’re visiting.

Upon completion of the survey, the results will be used to update data used in regional funding formulas for both capital improvements and operation and maintenance of the regional parks system. The funds are allocated by the Council to the 10 regional park implementing agencies.

Visitors to 83 regional parks and trails throughout the seven-county metro area are being surveyed. Each site is being sampled by interviewers multiple times on weekdays and weekends through Labor Day. People over age 12 are being interviewed.

Number, origin of visitors used in funding formulas

The Council has several goals in doing the survey:

• Obtain baseline data for doing annual park use estimates.
  • Develop seasonal use multipliers for parks and trails.
  • Determine the average persons per vehicle for different types of vehicles for each park.
• Get data on where visitors live. The funding formula for distribution of parks capital improvement dollars is weighted towards parks that receive more visitors from outside the geographic area served by the park’s operating agency.
• Get other demographic data on park visitors, such as age and gender.
  

  Visitors who don’t want to stop their activity to talk to a surveyor are offered a wristband with the address and an individual access code for an online survey.

 

People who don’t want to take the time to answer the survey questions while they are in the parks – generally joggers, bikers and inline skaters don’t want to stop their activity – are offered a wristband with an address and individualized code for one-time access to an online survey.

A report of survey results is expected in October.