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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-04-17; Parks & Recreation Commission; 406-7; Using Parks as Public Places Citizen RequestPARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION - AGENDA BILL AB# MTG. DATE: 406-7 4/17/06 STAFF: | PRICE TITLE: CITIZEN REQUEST / USING PARKS AS PUBLIC PLACES D "NFC [x] ACTION RECOMMENDED ACTION: Consider Citizen request and take appropriate action. ITEM EXPLANATION: During the March 17, 2006 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, Gary Hill, a local Carlsbad resident addressed the Commission concerning the use of using parks as public places where people gather. He described his findings, after visiting several Carlsbad parks; and, expressed his opinion that the addition of activities will draw more people to the parks during the day. Mr. Hill suggested that the addition of cafes, and other activities in the parks would create a gathering place for people to come together. By doing so, Carlsbad would become a better community. Enclosed are exhibits that Mr. Hill has requested be forwarded to the Commission regarding this item. EXHIBITS: 1. Project for Public Places article, "Creating Great Urban Parks" 2. Project for Public Places article, "What Makes a Great Place" 3. National Recreation & Park Association article, If You Don't Count, Your Park Won't Count" Project for Public Spaces (PPS) I Placemakii^ for Communities PUBLIC SPACES Creating Great Urban Parks by Fred Kent, President, Project for Public Spaces and Kathy Madden, Director, Urban Parks Institute From Great Parks/Great Cities: Seattle, 1998, a publication on an Urban Parks Institute regional workshop. If urban parks can evolve from their current, primarily recreational role, into a new role as a catalyst for community development and enhancement, parks will be an essential component in transforming and enriching our cities. A park and its surrounding area can be not only a place to understand and relate to nature, but it can also be a place for social and cultural exchange. A park can be alive and teeming with entrepreneurial activities such as markets; physical activities such as children playing or people skating, walking or jogging; for cultural activities, such as art and community events; or for simply socializing with friends. For many years and in many cities throughout the world, parks have played a pivotal role in shaping the success |of cities. The first formal "parks," such as Central Park in New York City, were created in the 19th century, to be j passive and beautiful, in contrast to the dense and dirty sality of urban life. However, they were, in the long run, a collection of important destinations and places. The Sailboat Pond in Central Park is a good example of such a "place," and remains both a destination in the park and a place to enjoy nature. "We have not even scratched the surface of the impact parks could have on the revitalization of communities." Later, parks were planned as part of a broader, inter-connected "open space system," which also included town squares, plazas, greenways and a variety of other types of spaces: just about everything in a city that is not a building or a road. This suggests that the full range of benefits that open space can provide to cities was understood. However, the quality of public spaces and public life in most cities suggests that we do not fully understand this benefit. In EXHIBIT 1 fact, we have not even scratched the surface of the impact parks could have on the revitalization of communities. Many of today's urban parks have few activities outside of recreational opportunities, and do not attract people such as seniors or teens, or people who are just looking for a place to sit or walk on a daily basis. Often, there is not even a sidewalk, a place in the shade, or an opportunity to buy a sandwich or cup of coffee. The danger in all of this is that when there are few reasons for people to go to a park, fewer people use them and they will cease to be valued. There are several important steps involved in creating parks that are important as community places. One step involves the process we use at Project for Public Spaces to renew parks, which begins with understanding a community's concerns about a particular space. It is then necessary to determine how the assets of the community can be used to develop both the plan and the programming for the park. This will all lead to the development of a community's vision for the park. Observing how the park is used and measuring people's perceptions of it are also key elements in understanding what changes can be made to transform a park a successful "place." A good park provides a range of things to do - there are a multitude of activities for different age groups and types of people to use. It should be easy to get to, and connected to the surrounding community - accessibility. It should be safe, clean and attractive and there should be places to sit - comfort and image. Most important of all is sociability, the park should be a place to meet other people an integral part of community life. The final and essential part of this process is doing something: making changes in the park, experimenting, and evaluating how the changes effect use. Today, some cities are beginning to see that parks can contribute significantly to the quality of urban life. By integrating parks into the cultural lives of neighborhoods, and by giving responsibility for maintenance, new programs and in some cases, design, to the communities themselves, we are seeing a renewal of parks in places some may have thought were impossible. What follows are a few examples of parks that have become catalysts for transforming urban areas. Union Square Park, New York City New York City's Union Square Park has, at different imes in history, been a hub for hotels, theaters, fashion, and as a gathering place where labor unions, communists, anarchists, and socialists frequently met and debated. By the early 1970's the park and the surrounding area had become run-down and the park was perceived as a place for negative activities. Recently, the park was renovated, using its historic design. A business improvment district was developed in the area around the park, and a farmer's market and seasonal Christmas market were established in the parking lot on the north and west ends of the park. The park, the market and the surrounding area have flourished. The .market attracts people, provides entrepreneurial opportunities, and gives the community a valuable connection to the farms surrounding the city. Laguna Beach, California A linear park and walkway located between the Pacific Coast Highway and the Pacific Ocean in downtown Laguna Beach, California, has a range of activities for all ages including small-scale sports such as basketball, limbing structures for children, seating and game areas, a boardwalk for strolling, a cafe, and extensive flower beds and landscape displays. The park is considered a major asset to the community. San Bernardino, California Until recently, the heart of San Bernardino, California was a large parking lot in front of City Hall surrounded by streets with fast moving traffic. In an attempt to bring people back to downtown, a central square with a grassy lawn surrounded by a trellis, walkway, seating areas and a bus stop was built. By adding angled park, planting traffic was slowed accessible to the parking on the streets around the trees and improving crosswalks, down and the park was made more surrounding area. 3°\ Unique to the creation of this park was the idea that the plan for the site, and the programming activities would come directly from the community. To accomplish this, | the city and the downtown business association put out a call asking non-profit associations interested in using the park to contact them. They received numerous (letters and calls of interest. Today a performance tent is located at one end of the square in which weddings, holiday performances, and fashion shows are held, and there are several different types of markets around the park's perimeter. The park is functioning as a successful central square for the people of San Bernardino. Project for Pubtc Spaca (PPS) | Pbcenuldijg for Connmmties PUBLIC SPACES MAKING PLACES August 2005 What Makes a Place Great? It's surprisingly simple. Over the past 30 years Project for Public Spaces has evaluated more than 1,000 public spaces, and informally investigated tens of thousands more. From all this we have discovered that most great places—whether a grand downtown plaza or humble neighborhood park—share four key qualities: 1. It is accessible and well-connected to other important places in the area. 2. The space is comfortable and projects a good image. 3. People are drawn to participate in activities there. 4. It is a sociable place where people like to gather, visiting it again and again. Paying attention to these qualities can help you evaluate the public spaces in your own community, and make the changes that can transform them into great places. Please let us know about the places, in your town or anywhere around the world, you think are great by filling out the nomination form on our Great Public Spaces website. (See adjacent sidebar) Access and Linkages ^^m^^mt^m fou can easily judge the accessibility of a place by loting its connections to the surroundings— [including the visual links. A great public space is asy to get to, easy to enter, and easy to navigate four way through. It's arranged in a way so you in see most of what is going on there, both from distance and up close. The edges of a public space also play an important role in making it accessible; a row of shops along a street, for instance, is more interesting and EXHIBIT 2 generally safer to walk along than a blank wall or an empty lot. Accessible spaces are conveniently reached by foot and, ideally, public transit, and have a high parking turnover. (Photo: Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, OR) Questions to consider about Access and Linkages: • Can you see the space from a distance? Is its interior visible from the outside? • Is there a good connection between this place and adjacent buildings? Or is it surrounded by blank walls, surface parking lots, windowless buildings, or other alienating elements that discourage people from entering the area? • Do occupants of adjacent buildings use the space? • Can people easily walk to the place? Or are they intimidated by heavy traffic or forlorn streetscapes? • Do sidewalks lead to and from the adjacent areas? • Does the space function well for people with disabilities and other special needs? • Do the paths throughout the space take people where they actually want to go? • Can people use a variety of transportation options—bus, train, car, bicycle—to reach the place? Comfort and Image ^^••^•H^H space that is comfortable and looks inviting is pikely to be successful. A sense of comfort includes jrceptions about safety, cleanliness, and the availability of places to sit. A lack of seating is the surprising downfall of many otherwise good places. (People are drawn to places that give them a choice 3f places to sit, so they can at various times of day or year be either in or out of the sun. Women are good judges of comfort and image, because they tend to be more discriminating about the public spaces they use. (Photo: Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, France) Questions to consider about Comfort and Image: • Does the place make a good first impression? • Are there as many women as men? • Are there enough places to sit? Are seats conveniently located? Do people have a choice of places to sit, either in the sun or shade? • Are spaces clean and free of litter? Who is responsible for maintenance? • Does the area feel safe? Are there security personnel present? If so, what do these people do? When are they on duty? • Are people taking pictures? Are there many photo opportunities available? • Do vehicles dominate pedestrian use of the space, or prevent them from easily getting to the space? Uses and Activities ^^^•^^•••i range of activities are the fundamental building >locks of a great place. Having something to do jives people a reason to come to a place—and freturn. When there is nothing interesting to do, a ;pace will sit empty. That's the best measure that something is wrong. A carefully chosen range of activities will help a place attract a variety of people at different times of the day. A playground will draw young kids during the day, while basketball courts draw older kids after school and band conceits bring in everyone during the evening. (Photo: Kungstradgarden, Stockholm, Sweden) Questions to consider about Uses and Activities: • Are people using the space or is it empty? • Is it used by people of different ages? • How many different types of activities are occurring at one time ~ people walking, eating, playing baseball, chess, relaxing, reading? • Which parts of the space are used and which are not? • Is there a management presence, or can you identify anyone in charge of the space? Sociability is is the most important quality for a place to chieve—and the most difficult. When a place comes a favorite spot for people to meet friends, reet their neighbors, and feel comfortable f .^interacting with strangers, then you are well on your way to having a great place. Photo: Jackson Square, New Orleans, LA) Questions to consider about Sociability: • Is this a place where you would choose to meet your friends? Are others meeting friends here? • Are people in groups? Are they talking with one another? Do they talk to people in other groups? • Do people seem to know each other by face or by name? • Do people bring their friends and relatives to see the place? Do they point to its features with pride? • Are people smiling? Do people make regular eye contact with each other? • Do many people use the place frequently? • Does the mix of ages and ethnic groups generally reflect the community at large? • Do people tend to pick up litter when they see it? @lssue::June 2005 - National Recreation and Park Association National Recreation and Park Association SITEMAP | CONTACTU5 iout NRPA mbership Ivocacy :creditation / rtification ucatipn & Conferences ublications & Research &R Magazine 'RPA Cybrary QQ4-2Qj05_PublicatiQns ataloque ournal of Leisure esearch ournal of Park and "ecreation Admin. 'herapeutic Recreation_ ournal .RS Abstracts esources ewsletters oseph Lee MemoriaI ibrary and Archiyes exhibit & . -* -usponsorshipopportunities HomePaqe > Publications & Research > P&R Magazine > Parks & Recreation::Archives > June 2005 > Qlssue:: June 2005 @Issue::June 2005 If You Don't Count, Your Park Won't Count Estimating the number of city park users can be difficult, but is important in receiving funding By Peter Harnik and Amy Kimball How many people visit the parks in your city? Do they go once a year for a festival, or every day to walk the dog? Do they prefer a park with a playground or one with benches by the lake? What would make their experiences better? With a few exceptions, your mayor does not know the answers to these questions. The parks department may have calculated how many people came for that big summertime concert, and it almost certainly knows how many folks sign up for yoga classes, soft ball leagues or rounds of golf. But those paying customers are only a tiny fraction of residents and visitors who make general use of the entire park system.Paying customers, at festivals and special events, comprise only a tiny fraction of the residents and visitors who make general use of the entire park system. The million-dollar question is, What is the system's "regular* usage—walkers, picnickers, jugglers, basketballers, readers, Frisbee throwers, playground climbers, runners, tennis players, cyclists, boombox listeners, kite flyers, skaters, sunbathers, bird watchers, people watchers, squirrel feeders—on a sunny Saturday in June, a gray weekday in November and everything in between? ~ If park users are ever to have influence, we need to start counting. ~ Part of the problem is that it isnl easy. This isnt like a movie theater with tickets, a county fair with a turnstile, or even a national park with an entry booth. How do you count pedestrians coming freely into a park system from an infinity of entrances and engaging in a multitude of activities spread across thousands of acres? The other part of the problem is that many park managers aren't all that interested in knowing the answer. A profit-making business counts its customers (and surveys them, which is something different) so that it can make a variety of decisions that might increase its profitability. Most park managers feel that because they arent in the profit business, counting is an expense and a headache that they dont need. This attitude is wrong. The concepts of "profit" and "investment" in the private sector are matched by the concepts of "benefit" and "appropriation" in the public sector. Getting a sufficient appropriation from the city council is as dependent on strong numbers, as its equivalent on the private side. Alan Tate in his book Great City Parks writes, "User counts are the only form of profit and toss account that exists in park management. It is an object lesson in the patient, persistent and professional application of sound business principles in the public realm." ( __ Numbers help managers assess the success of operation, give clues as to how they can perform better and provide benchmarks for excellence and goals to achieve. Numbers can even be profitable in unexpected ways—in Portland, Ore., the Nike Corporation has pledged a substantial sponsorship contribution to the parks department if the city can demonstrate that it has EXHIBITS ©Issuer June 2005 - National Recreation and Part Association RECREATION doubled attendance at its parks. Here's the clincher: checking the verb "count" in the thesaurus yields four telling synonyms: "enumerate," "estimate," "have influence" and "be important." Important things are tabulated; things that are unimportant aren't. If park users are ever to have influence, we need to start counting. Counting vs. Surveying Counting and surveying park users are not the same thing. Counting is rigorous, quantitative and essentially looks back at the past; surveying represents a softer, qualitative took into the future. Both are important means, not ends; they are tools for better park management, but counting is the more telling. Ifs like the difference between the pre-election polls and the election itself, or the Associated Press poll of college football coaches and the bowl games. Ironically, it's easier to survey than to count. Writers and researchers on urban park systems have been calling for greater user data collection for some time. For instance, the Trust for Public Land's The Excellent City Park System identified "user satisfaction" as one of the main tenets of a successful parks program. Knowledge of how, when and where people use parks is essential in guiding managers in directing staff time, funding and many other decisions. Surveys Surveys are often administered through the mail or telephone, or occasionally in the parks themselves. In a study of the nation's 50 largest cities, the Trust for Public Land found 11 that conducted user surveys, most of them in conjunction with their strategic planning process. The most frequently asked questions involved suggestions for new facilities, and almost every survey asked for an overall rating of park and recreation services. Surveys are good mechanisms for getting need, satisfaction and trend data for parks. In comparison with physical counts, surveys are also fairly easy and quick to administer, and they can be relatively inexpensive, particularly if they are a subcomponent of a full-scale resident satisfaction survey undertaken by a city auditor department (as is done in Portland, Ore.). In contrast to user counts, surveys also have the advantage of being able to incorporate non-users into the data collection and analysis. For instance, information about park users and nonusers can be compared to census bureau information about the community at large to determine if all ethnic and age groups are being represented. Chris Walker, senior researcher at the Urban Institute, suggests using census data from the ZIP codes of users questioned in an interception survey. Computerized geographical information systems (CIS) can also be used to find the demographics of a quarter-mile buffer (or more or less) around the park. On the other hand, surveys are not flawless. According to Walker, telephone surveys tend to be skewed toward higher-income individuals and toward frequent park users, because higher-income individuals are both more likely to use parks and to answer a telephone survey. He also noted that people do not recall their experiences in parks very well, and respondents may overstate their use of the facilities. (A newer challenge is that more people every year are replacing their wired phones with wireless cellphones; these cannot be dialed by surveyors because each call is charged to the recipient.) Mail surveys also suffer from the self- selection problem, exacerbated by the fact that they generate fewer total responses. Of the 11 cities that perform surveys, none uses the "interception" method, in which users are questioned in the park, although Portland plans to use this procedure in its next survey. Finally, a telephone or mail survey cannot gather detailed information about visitation to specific parks. Most make an attempt to get broad patterns, but the information gathered from a survey cannot replace on-slte observations and counts. Counts While straightforward in concept, counting park users is so challenging in practice that in recent years, it has become almost a lost art. Nearly none of the park departments contacted make an effort to count users beyond those that can be easilv tallied throuoh fee-oavina services or dated @lssoe::June 2005 - National Recreation and Park Association facilities, such as swimming pools. Several managers interviewed were surprised at the suggestion of counting users in an open park, and believed that it cannot be done. It wasnt always the case. As far back as 1871, officials with New York's Central Park were tallying those entering its 13 gates (including also horses, carriages and sleighs). Chicago and Philadelphia did so too, although their exact methods are not known. Julia Bachrach of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development attributes the interest in counting to the rise of the new fields of social science and social work. One of the reasons for creating parks, after all, was for the social betterment of urban factory workers, and social scientists were eager to measure the results. (In Chicago, Bachrach notes, meticulous numbers were kept on attendance at the "field houses"— recreation centers—because they were a new development for a park system, which previously had focused only on passive use.) Counts, of course, can yield much more information than simply a single participant number. They can also take note of gender, age and ethnicity as well as park user activities. Gender and age are particularly significant because they have strong correlation with perceptions of safety. If a particular park count yields a high proportion of males between 18 and 45, it is likely that the park is frightening or intimidating to much of the population. Any park whose proportion of females is significantly below 50 percent probably needs detailed analysis and attention. It is relatively easy to count park users if they come primarily by car. For instance. Rick Rowe of Virginia Beach Parks Department has the groundskeepers in his larger parks count cars twice a day and uses a multiplier to arrive at an estimate. However, he makes no attempt to count users in the smaller neighborhood parks, and it is clear that this method does not work in dense urban areas where most people travel to parks on foot or by public transportation. Counting trail users on a linear corridor such as a rail-trail can be equally as daunting. There are multiple entry points to trails, but once users are "in" the park, they all pass a given point and can be tallied either by people or by equipment. In Indianapolis, Dr. Grey Lindsey has done extensive counts along the Monon Trail using an infrared beam that operates 24 hours a day. By assigning observers to occasionally double-check counts, it is possible to determine a formula to statistically correct for double-counts (when two users pass in front of the beam at the same moment). After four years of counts, Lindsey can easily spot (and discard) data anomalies due to malfunctioning of the infrared beam. Of all the free, multiple-entry parks in the U.S., Bryant Park in New York City has the most comprehensive system for counting park users. Every day, a park groundskeeper walks through the 6-acre park at 1:15 p.m. (chosen as the peak point in the lunch rush) with two click-counters, one for tallying men, the other for women. He also makes note of the weather, the temperature, whether the main lawn is open and if there are any special events taking place in the park. (If there is a large event, a manager separately estimates the attendance.) The results are graphed and used for all kinds of analysis. As a word of caution, Jerome Barth, director of park operations, notes that these numbers provide only a noontime snapshot of one park (New York has 1,699 others), and that because of the time involved the work is expensive. Barth can afford it because the park is run by the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation, a private non-profit that operates independently of the New York City Parks Department. It should be noted that, technically, what's done in Bryant Park is called a census. A simpler and less expensive type of count is a sample. Sampling, which is how transportation departments are able to generate usage numbers for every street in a city, involves a two-step statistical process of counting many locations and then determining a set of ratios between the main locations and all the subsidiary spots. Once the ratios are set, a single count can yield relatively accurate estimates for all the others. Then there are estimates. Several park departments conduct telephone or mail surveys and then use the information to extrapolate a guess at the numbers of users. Fort Worth, Texas, for example, teamed that 66 percent of respondents use a park at least once a year, yielding an extrapolated usership of 364,000 people. Chicago's survey revealed that 91 percent visited a park at least once a year; that projects out to more than 2.5 million Chicaoo residents. @lssue::Jnnc 2005 - National Recreation and Faik Association Unfortunately, this number has two nearly fatal flaws: it does not count out- of-town visitors and other nonresidents, and it doesn't count multiple users, or what is known as user-days. A user-day is a much more realistic measure of a system's use—someone who goes to a park for a conceit once in the summer counts as one; a daily park jogger counts as 365. This is why a place like Forest Park in St. Louis can register a user-day number of 12 million—far higher than the population of its metropolitan area. A Complete Park User Assessment The city that probably does the best overall job of assessing its park visitation is Portland, Ore. Portland has consistently examined its park system on an annual basts, and it is now undertaking an even more comprehensive assessment of park users' habits and attitude. Since 1995, the city auditor has produced an annual report on overall government performance. As a part of that, the Bureau of Parks and Recreation is audited based on staffing, spending, workload, citizen satisfaction and ability to reach major goals. (Portland also identified six other comparable cities—Charlotte, Cincinnati, Denver, Kansas City, Sacramento and Seattle— against which to compare data.) In fiscal year 2003, the audit involved a survey about all city services, which was sent to 16,000 resident households. (Its cost in mailing, printing and data entry was $28,000, not including the staff time required in writing the questionnaire.) Beginning in 2004, with the addition of Robin Grimwade to its staff, the Bureau of Parks and Recreation is taking park monitoring to a new level. Grimwade, who came to Portland after an accomplished career of monitoring national park usage in his native Australia, is committed to using a range of methodologies in his new city. These are: 1. Observational surveys. Observers will be stationed in parks to collect numbers of users for a given day, time and season and repeat it at regular intervals. 2. Intercept surveys. Paid staff will interview people who are in parks to find out how they got there, why they came, how long they stayed, and the importance of the park's different attributes and facilities. The survey will initially be carried out seasonally, then every three to five years in order to track changes. If no changes are noted the frequency will be reduced to once every 10 years. 3. Focus groups. Certain individuals identified from the intercept surveys will be invited to participate in an indepth focus group discussion about park use habits and desires for future park system directions. 4. Telephone survey. Finally, a random sample of 1,500 residents—park users as well as those who never enter parks— will be contacted by telephone to get opinions about park issues. (As of yet, the content of this survey had not been finalized.) The purpose of gathering this information is to assist Portland in marketing its parks. By generating a "psychographic profile' of park users—including even such facts as where they shop and what TV programs they watch— Grimwade hopes to improve the agency's communication, increase park attendance and help users have a satisfying park experience. The icing on the cake will be that Grimwade and his staff will also know their park by the numbers, and hopefully be able to turn those facts and figures into funding. Peter Harnik is director of the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land in Washington, D.C., and author of Inside City Parks (Urban Land Institute, 2000). Amy Kimball, a student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, was an intern with TPL in 2004. Harnik can be contacted at peter.harnik@tDl.org or 202.543.7552. Copyright 2006, National Recreation and Park Association. AH Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy 22377 Belmont Ridge Road, Ashbum, VA 20148-4150, Phone 703.858.0784 Fax 703.858.0794 7-1-1 for hearing and speech impaired Questions or comments regarding the Web site? Please e-mail NRPA