Allegheny County to survey park users

Allegheny County and the Allegheny County Parks Foundation will begin a $135,000 survey this weekend to find out who is using county parks and what changes they would like to see.

The survey, paid for by grants from the Richard King Mellon and Colcom foundations, is being conducted by Colorado firm Left Brain Concepts. Andrew Mowen, a Penn State professor and consultant, helped to design the survey.

“We want to get a better idea of who’s using our parks,” said Kevin Evanto, director of the county’s marketing office. “We want to know what they like, what they don’t like, what they’d like to see.

“Nothing is too big and nothing is too small. What they’d like to see is what we want to know about.”

Mr. Evanto said the survey will be “much more intense” than input meetings the county had in neighborhoods around the nine county parks a few years ago. He pointed out this will be the first park survey since the county took three steps: replacing county police officers with park rangers in some parks, doing inhouse park programming and marketing the parks more aggressively.

“We’re interested to see the impact of those three things,” he said.

The parks foundation, formed in 2007, helps the county identify park projects and raise money to make them possible. For example, it helped the county raise half the money for a $1 million upgrade to the South Park Oval last year.

Carole Smith, spokeswoman for the foundation, said it is important to do such a survey every few years to meet the current wants and needs of park visitors.

“We need to see who’s using the park, what they are doing, how much time they spend there,” she said. “We want to accommodate the whims of people as they change.”

Interviewers conducting the survey will be in parking lots, playgrounds, ball courts, trailheads, swimming areas and other park sites throughout the day beginning this weekend. The surveyors, who will be wearing nametags, will carry a letter of authorization and a clipboard.

The surveys, which take about 10 minutes, will continue through August.