Sunset Dunes Attendance Numbers Are Grossly Double Counted and Based on Counters That May Not Be Working Properly
The 1.7 Million Visitor Numbers is from this One Set of Counters In a Box Just North Of Lawton
It has been widely reported that Parks and Rec has stated that there were 1.7 million visitors to Sunset Dunes in its first year of operation. The fact is that 90% of that total comes from the two sensors located in this box in the center divider just north of Lawton.
I received this information from Parks and Rec on 9/23. Click the image to enlarge:
Screenshots of my communications with Parks and Rec can be found here.
Almost all the numbers are double-counted and some make no sense at all.
One of the counters is pointed east and counts visitors who walk or ride by in the former northbound lanes. One is pointed west and counts the visitors in the southbound lanes.
I put in a request to Parks and Rec and received a spreadsheet with their raw data. The spreadsheet contained some very odd column headings and no explanation of what they meant. I have since put in some more requests. They did not answer some of my questions. The questions they did answer left me even more confused than I was before.
The Data
Four of the column headings were labeled “Dual Post – Beach In”, “Dual Post – Beach Out”, “Dual Post – City In” and “Dual Post – City Out”. I again reached out to Parks and Rec to clarify this. They responded:
This told me that the “City” is the former northbound lanes and “Beach” is the former southbound lanes. “In” is northbound traffic and “out” is southbound traffic.
Double-Counting
Almost everyone who passes the box in one direction will then pass it in the other direction. This means all of this data is double counted. Every visitor is double-counted.
Inexplicable Data
Below is a screenshot of the raw data spreadsheet. (Click to enlarge.)
The spreadsheet contains data since the closure of the road, but also from the weeks before the road was closed. Notice the 15 weekdays that I have circled. The road had not yet been closed. The counters were counting but the road was open to traffic, so WHAT were the counters counting? If they were counting pedestrians and bicycles, the numbers should be near zero on those days, but they are not.
Were they counting cars? Remember that “Beach In” means northbound traffic in the southbound lanes and “City Out” means southbound traffic in the northbound lanes. If they were counting cars, these numbers should be zero on days when the road was open to traffic. They are not.
I asked Parks and Rec to explain these numbers, but they have not done so.
Conclusion:
The 1.7 million number comes almost entirely from a single set of counters in a single box just north of Lawton. I asked Parks and Rec to supply the make and model of these counters, but they said such a request is not a public records request and they are not required to answer. Almost all the numbers are double-counted. People that travel one way will have to come back the other way. There may be walkers on the south end of the road that were never counted. There are numbers in the spreadsheet that cannot be explained at all. Were the counters counting a large number of phantom visitors? There is simply no way to know.
The fact is that this is not a legitimate way to count users of the park. The 1.7 million number is very doubtful and should have never been released. The only legitimate way is to count the number of visitors as they enter and leave the park which would require 38 counters, one at each end and one at every cross-street.
Attachment:
Screenshots of my communications with Parks and Rec can be found here.