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Biking
COMMENTARY
Bike trail users spend millions of dollars locally, says survey
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By Ken McCall,
Staff Writer
1:13 AM Sunday, December 20, 2009
The typical bike trail user is a middle-aged, male cyclist who rides the trail one to two hours three to five times a week for health and exercise, according to a report on last summer’s trail count and survey.
The first-of-its-kind survey, conducted on seven trails by about 200 volunteers and eight regional governments and agencies on three days in June and July, also counted more than 15,000 users leading to a conservative estimate that more than a million people use the 200 miles of paved trails in the region.
But the numbers in the report issued earlier this month by the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission that caught everyone’s eye had to do with the money spent by trail users.
Using an estimation method developed by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, the report estimates that users spend between $13.5 million and $16 million every year on related equipment, food and beverages and overnight accommodations.
“We were shocked at the economic impact,” said Amy Forsthofel, marketing research manager for Five Rivers MetroParks. “I mean that’s huge. We knew that they had a strong economic impact, but I don’t think we were aware how large it would be.”
Chrisbell Bednar, director of Greene County Parks, called the spending figures “tremendous,” especially in light of the tough economic times. Bednar also referred to the findings that eight out of 10 users said they used the trail for either health and exercise or recreation.
“This gives us the hard data to say the trails benefit not only the physical health and well-being of the local residents, but they also affect the bottom line in terms of helping the economy of the region,” Bednar said.
The surveys and counts found the most users — just under half of all counted — were on Greene County trails. The 7,549 users counted there were roughly double the users counted in Miami (3,882) and Montgomery (3,909) counties.
Bednar said the results will help local communities gather funding and support for expansion.
“The trails we have in place are what one would call the interstate system,” she said. “So now it’s incumbent on the communities to create the spokes to come into that system.”
One of the key findings to Matt Lindsay, manager of environmental planning for the MVRPC who helped coordinate the survey, was the predominance of bicycles on the trail.
More than three out of four of the 1,750 people surveyed said their primary activity on the trail is bike riding.
That’s probably why, even though they’re officially called recreational trails, everyone calls them bike trails, Lindsay said.
He was also surprised that very few children were counted. Only 31 children under 15, less than 2 percent, were surveyed.
“We counted more dogs than children,” he said.
Lindsay also noted that less than half of surveyed users said they bought food or drinks along the trail.
“There might be an untapped market,” he said.
Lindsay said the agencies hoped to do the counts annually and the surveys every few years.
Other user statistics:
• 62 percent were male.
• 55 percent were between the ages of 46 and 65.
• 33 percent use the trails between three and five times a week.
• 40 percent spent between one and two hours per visit.
• 3.5 percent use the trail for commuting, leading the MVRPC to observe that better on-street connections are needed to raise that number.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or kmccall@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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