Multi-Use Trail Usage By County In The Miami Valley

Trail Usage Statistics
and
Economic Benefits of Trails

2010 - I have updated this webpage with 2009 statistics from all the parks districts that are currently collecting data on trail usage.

Multi- User Trail Usage in Area - At a January 2009 MVRPC meeting, it was agreed that planning would begin for trail counts in the area. Agencies that volunteered to participate were: Miami County Parks, MCD, Five Rivers MetroParks, Centerville Washington Township Parks, and Piqua. Trail counts were completed in July and August 2009. The final report: Miami Valley Trail User Survey Report dated 9 December 2009 is available from the MVRPC website. Highlights of the report are that across the region there were 10,903 trail users counted on Sunday July 26th and 4,431 trail users counted on two Wednesdays July 29th and August 12th. Overall they estimate just over 1 million trail uses in 2009 with an economic impact of about $14 million dollars.

Economic (and other) Benefits of Trails, Greenways and Open Space - I have added a webpage and two Adobe files that give you some of the economic benefits of multi-use trails. All three pages of information were complied by Mr. Rory Robinson of the National Parks Service

Comprehensive Local Regional Bikeway Plan - For the last few years Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission worked with a contractor to build a Bikeway Plan for Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Northern Warren counties. The plan was finally released 4 December 2008. In it are all the trails in the four county area along with all planned trails. If you are interested in where we are going with trail's planning you might want to look at it.

Purpose of this webpage: On this page will be shown the usage of our trails by county by year by trail. This webpage is also the beginning of an effort by Miami Valley Trails, to capture the Economic Impact of multi-use trails on our communities.

In 1997 the Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana Council of Governments (OKI) instituted a study to estimate; the number of users on the Little Miami Scenic Trail (between Corwin and Loveland) and determine the economic impact of those trail users. The study titled "Little Miami Scenic Trail (Trail Users Study) (Adobe Acrobat file 1.2Mb) was released in 1999. It showed that approximately 150K to 175K people used the trail in 1997 and they spent about $2.0 - 2.4 million dollars. If you read the study you will find that the raw counter data was inflated by the one day "Calibration Count" performed by volunteers by as much as 8.7 times. Then it was factored downward to reflect trail visitors during a day. They said in their study:

"These factors provide only an estimate of total trail occupancy during any given hour. They must be factored down by the average duration of visit to produce an estimate of actual number of trail visitors during an entire day or any other period of time. The average duration of visit will be derived from the Follow-Up Surveys from trail users." (Page 11 LMST Study 1999)

Miami Valley Trails is encouraging all of county's in the Miami Valley to purchase and install infrared counters to record the raw data needed for studies of trail use. We are also encouraging them to replicate the 1999 OKI Study to determine the usage of our trail system and the economic impact of those trails on our community.
Available Data On this page we will provide the data available by county or organization, by trail and by year to show you the growth in use. This page is a work in process. It does meet the Webmaster's needs and may not meet my reader's needs at this time. It will be improved. We hope to be able to post statistically valid studies of trail usage in the future.

Trail Usage Data By County
Clark	Greene	Montgomery Five Rivers MetroParks	Montgomery Miami Conservancy District
Warren	Little Miami Scenic Park		Miami

Clark County Trail Use Data

Trail Name	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	Total	Ave. Yearly
Little Miami Scenic Trail	42,909	58,170	27,370	24,157	24,361	25,396	22,036	45,307 Beatty S. 23,749 Beatty N.	248,145	31,018
Prairie Grass Trail	584	21,143	15,523	13,381	10,298	13,541	12,402	16,757	103,629	12,954
Buck Creek Scenic Trail	2,297	101,832	42,352	11,049	45,905	30,984*	41,416	no counter	275,835	39,405
Simon Kenton Trail	0	21,333	61,497	15.484	21,152	13,635**	18,761	no counter	151,862	21,694

Note: Trail use statistics are raw data from infrared counters. Data errors can include but are not limited to: theft or broken counter, counter recording erroneous data, counter moved from old location, etc. For example the apparent drop in usage of the Buck Creek Trail (2004 to 2005) was caused by vandalism of the counter so that data was not recorded.

Notes (2007) - (*) 2007 Buck Creek Scenic Trail had two bridge projects that interrupted trail use in 2007.
(**) 2007 Simon Kenton Trail had one construction project that interrupted trail use in 2007.

Greene County Trail Use Data

Trail	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	TOTAL	Ave. Yearly
KAT	10,000	10,000	10,000	20,500	20,500	20,500	20,500
LMST *	221,944	258,960	267,578	249,296	225,648	264,296	181,466
CST	0	0	80,000	80,000	81,837	82,227	75,396
JC	0	0	8,000	8,000	8,000	8,000	8,000
OET	0	0	0	10,000	12,264	23,355	7,110

Trail	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008 (1)	2009
KAT	20,500	20,500	20,500	20,500	16,309	25,943		236,252	18,173
LMST	167,468	175,545	155,403	115,159	150,657	208,160		2,641,580	203,198
CST	71,574	73,869	65,769	80,622	146,065	197,059		1,034,418	94,038
JC	8,000	8,000	11,400	11,400	39,857	101,570		220,227	20,021
OET	6,690	10,686	11,310	17,052	94,291	111,262		304,020	30,402

Notes:
   KAT   -   Kaufmann Avenue Trail - Actual Name is: Wright Brothers Bikeway
* LMST - Little Miami Scenic Trail in Greene County
   CST -   Creekside Trail
   OET -    Ohio to Erie Trail in Greene County (AKA Prairie Grass Trail in Clark County portion)
   JC    -    Xenia Jamestown Connector

(1) All data for 2008 was derived from counters from January 2008 - December 2008 as will 2009 and subsequent years. Previous years were not always counts for the entire year.

*There were no counters on Creekside Trail nor the Ohio to Erie Trail from 1996-1999.

*Counters Were installed on LMST in 1996.

*Counters were installed on Creekside Trail and The Ohio to Erie Trail in 2000.

*Red indicates numbers derived from counters. Black - means estimated data

*The numbers for Jamestown Connector and Wright Brothers Bikeway are estimated for years 1998 - 2006.

*Starting in 2002 the counters on the Little Miami Scenic Trail were moved out of Xenia and Yellow Springs.

*The numbers for Creekside Trail and the Ohio to Erie Trail are tripled. (Only one counter in area)

Montgomery County Trail Use Data

Trail Name

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Total

Ave. Yearly

Great Miami River Recreation Trail (Northern Segment)

78,743

no data
available

148,719

153,999

45,262

no data
available

189,900

314,795

no data
available*

no
counter

931,418

155,236

Notes: This is the trail that runs South from the Northern boundary of Taylorsville MetroPark through the park and then South along Wagoner Ford Road. Five Rivers MetroParks has no counters installed on any other trail. Plans are underway to purchase and install counters on the other Five River MetroParks trails.

The following table (below) is the data from Five Rivers MetroParks for 2009 and the first two months of 2010 with two counters. one on the Creekside Trail at the West end of the trail (T-Connection) and one on the Wolf Creek Recreation Trail at Englewood.

Year	Site (2009 data)	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	AADT �	Days with data	Total
2009	Creekside T-connection				3,485	6,098	4,870	5,963	4,033	4,768	3,186	2,617	1,311	132.113	275	48,221
2009	Wolf Creek, Englewood											682	443	18.441	59	6,731
2010	Creekside T-connection	1,021	461											25.119	59	9,168
2010	Wolf Creek, Englewood	604	113											12.293	58	4,487

� AADT = Annual Average Daily Traffic, the total whole day counts for the given year, divided by the number of whole days with data in that year.
* Some monthly totals are estimated when there is only partial data for the month. The values shown are calculated based on the daily average for the available data, multiplied by the number of days in that month.
** Totals in years where data is incomplete are calculated by multiplying the AADT by the number of days in that year.
A = adjustment applied, D = divide by 2 applied, F = filtering applied

Miami Conservancy District (Montgomery County Trails) - This data is for 2009 and the first two months of 2010 from the Miami Conservancy District. You'll note that they provide the approximate area that the data was collected from.

Year	Site	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	July	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	AADT�	Days with Data	Total
2009	RT-25 West Carrollton					1,417	805	1,726	2,062	1,737	902	801	164	38.768	224	14,150
	RT-8 Mad River Trail						2,324	2,620	2,043	1,724	1,237	939	323	52.028	211	18,990
2010	RT-25 West Carrollton	90	34	62											61
	RT-8 Mad River Trail	211	88	155											61

Miami County Trail Use Data

Note: Miami County has trails in Piqua, Troy, Tipp City and two connecting sections built as of 2006. Miami County has no counters at this time on any trail but is planning to purchase and install counters on their trails.

Warren County Trail User Data

Note: At the time of this writing, Miami Valley Trails has no data from Warren County. Miami Valley Trails is encouraging Warren County to purchase and install counters on the trails in Warren County.

In 1997 OKI collected data on the Little Miami Scenic Trail in Warren County from Loveland North to Corwin. They published the study "Little Miami Scenic Trail (Trail Users Study) (Adobe Acrobat file 1.2Mb) in 1999. It showed that approximately 150K to 175K people used the trail in 1997 and they spent about $2.0 - 2.4 million dollars. The Little Miami Scenic Park (ODNR) has estimated that for 2005 the trail usage was about 550,000 visits. Please be advised that the source of this estimate is unknown

Little Miami Scenic Park Trail User Data - (LMSP) - In 2008 the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), which manages the approximately 50 miles of the Little Miami Scenic Trail, purchased some trail counters. 2008 & 2009 data for the park is as follows:

Date	2008 Counter Hits	Date	2009 Counter Hits
August 2008 - December 2008	62,254 Total	01/09-12/09	169,778 Total
Loveland Counter	24,478	01/09-12/09	80,426
Grandin Road Counter	21,409	01/09-12/09	57,319
Corwin Counter	16,367	01/09-12/09	32,003 *

* Out of commission for several days in May due to vandalism

Economic Impact of Trail Use (Local)

2009 Miami Valley Trail User Survey Report Highlights of the report are that across the region there were 10,903 trail users counted on Sunday July 26th and 4,431 trail users counted on two Wednesdays July 29th and August 12th. Overall they estimate just over 1 million trail uses in 2009 with an economic impact of about $14 million dollars. This survey was completed in 2009. This is an important document because it is the first time that an organized look was taken about trail traffic and its economic impact on Montgomery, Greene and Miami Counties trails. To summarize the findings the report found that:
- Approximately 10,000 trail users were counted on Sunday July 26th. 4,431 were counted on the two Wednesdays July 29th. and August 12th.
- The majority of trail users were cyclists. On the weekend over 2/3 of trail users were cyclists.
- Trail users tend to be men. See my Website Statistics Page for more demographic data.
- The Economic Impact of the trails can be summarized as follows:
  - Hard Goods - Purchases of hard goods for trail use was between $6.4 and $7.1 million on an annual basis.
  - Soft Goods - Purchases like food and drink totaled between $5.5 and $7.1 million on an annual basis.
  - Overnight accommodations for trail users from outside the region totaled between $1.6 and $1.8 million on an annual basis.
  - Total yearly economic impact was about $14 Million.
1997 OKI Study of the Little Miami Scenic Trail - This is the 1997 study (released in 1999) performed by OKI (see below).
Yearly Hotel Room Nights at a Local Trailside Hotel - Their bookings increased 283% in 2008! (see below)
2008 University of Cincinnati Master's Thesis - Property
Values along Little Miami Scenic Trail - The closer to the trail the more valuable the property. (see below)

Economic Impact of Trail Use (Out of State) - I am starting to collect studies conducted by other parks districts to show you, the discerning reader, data from outside of Ohio.

City of San Jose, California Trail Counts Webpage - Data from three trails in San Jose.
Trails Boost business, health - 16 Jan. 2009 - Central Penn Business Journal - This study showed that the York County Heritage Rail Trail had 394,823 users in 2007 and generated between $5.4 and $6.2 Million dollars in sales to adjoining businesses.

1997 OKI Study of the Little Miami Scenic Trail. The economic impact of trail use is not easy to find. The OKI Study mentioned above (Click Here for a copy) estimated that in September 1997, the date the data collection was accomplished, those surveyed mailed back questionnaires. The result was for each use of the trail $13.54 was spent. 30% of that expense was auto expenses getting to and from the trail. Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Calculator for CPI (Consumer Price Index) that amount is equal to $17.77 in 2008 dollars. So using a straight line assumption of no additional usage of the trail from 1997 to 2006, the amount of money spent increases from between $2.37 Million to $3.51 Million and the number of riders increased to 198,000.

Year	Number of Riders	Dollars Spent Per Ride	Total $ Spent
1997	150,000	$13.54	$2.03 Million
2008 (est.)	198,000	$17.77	$3.51 Million (est.)

This does not include any lodging costs. In the 1997 study there was not enough data reported to use.

Yearly Hotel Room Nights at a Local Trailside Hotel - I have had reported to me data from one hotel near a trail in Miami Valley. Their experience with lodgers who are staying at their hotel primarily to ride (or use) the trails is as follows below. As you can see this is a very small data point; only one hotel with data for six years. Miami Valley Trails will be working with Convention and Visitor's Bureaus in the Miami Valley to find some easy way to collect data from out-of-town guests to stay at a hotel, motel, B&B or campground simply to use our trails .

Year	Number of Room Nights	Dollars Spent
2003	17	$1,712
2004	28	$2,844
2005*	33	$3,349 *
2006	41	$3,851
2007*	48	$5,162*
2008	136	$13,723 + $440 Bike Rentals

*Data for 2005 & 2007 is probably 25% low. Data not collected consistently

2008 University of Cincinnati Master's Thesis - Property Values along Little Miami Scenic Trail - The Impact of the Little Miami Scenic Trail on Single Family Residential Property Values (3.8 Mb Adobe File. In the Abstract the author summarizes the study saying that the closer a house is to the trail, the higher is its property value! The analysis suggests that, each foot increase in distance to the trail decreases the sale price of a sample property by $7.05. In other words, being closer to the Little Miami Scenic Trail adds value to the single family residential properties.

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