Survey reveals profile of regional park and trail visitors
The results of a summer-long survey of visitors to regional parks and regional trails didn’t yield any major surprises. But a few findings may demand closer scrutiny in the future, Metropolitan Council parks planners said.
Based on more than 7,000 responses from June-August, the 2008 Regional Parks and Trails Survey reveals who is using regional parks and trails, how they are using them, and what communities they come from. Among the findings:
- Park visitors most often arrived by car or truck in order to walk, hike, swim or picnic. Each vehicle carried an average of three people. Slightly more females than males used regional parks, and average ages were younger than trail visitors.
- Trail visitors arrived mostly on a bicycle or on foot to ride, walk, run or jog. Trail visitors were slightly more likely to be male than female, and slightly older than park visitors. They more often lived closer to the trails than did park visitors.
- Nearly 50% of park visitors and 40% of trail visitors live outside the local vicinity in which their park or trail visit occurred.
Findings help Council to best allocate funds
The information yielded by the survey is useful for several purposes, according to Metropolitan Council Planning Analyst John Kari, who managed the survey.
Snowboarding is one of scores of activities that people can enjoy in the regional park system.
“We know the parks and trail system are incredibly important and popular in the metro area – we had about 33 million visits last year. But for funding purposes we also need to know the ‘who, what and where’ about folks who use the facilities, so we can properly allocate funding to the places where it does the most good,” he said.
For example, by showing where visitors come from, the 2008 results show again that metropolitan parks and trails truly are regional systems, Kari said. “In fact, nearly 50% of all park users and 40% of trail users live outside the park district where they recreate.”
Fully 10% of park visitors come from outside the metro area, according to the survey.
With a 2007 allocation of more than $8 million in state funds for operations and maintenance – and $17.5 million for capital improvement projects – the Council carries a heavy burden to assure accurate funding to the 10 agencies that own and operate regional parks and trails, Kari said.
Preliminary survey results were presented to the Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission (MPOSC) on January 6. The final report will be available and posted online in February.
Metropolitan Council Member Daniel Wolter, who sits on the MPOSC, said, "Consistently, people rank our parks, trails and open spaces as one of the most meaningful and defining attributes of the Twin Cities metropolitan area's quality of life. This survey will play an important part in helping us shape future parks policy."
The last major regional parks visitation survey was done in 1998.
Some results demand closer scrutiny
Two issues surfaced that may require further study.
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A significant number of bikers on regional trails told surveyors they were on their way to or from work (on weekdays) – a category not tabulated in user preferences. Additional information about bike commuters may be gathered in future trail surveys, and perhaps in 2010 when Council transportation planners conduct the next Travel Behavior Inventory.
A measure of park and trail visitors by race and ethnicity showed that minority populations are underrepresented when compared to the general population of those groups.
For example, while Black or African Americans comprise 6.5% of the regional population (according to 2007 demographic information), only 2.5% were found using parks and trails.
And while Hispanic populations comprise 4.6% of the region, only 2.3% were found using parks and trails. For Asian populations, the survey reported 4.9% in the general population and 4.0% who used parks and trails.