12/21/2010 DATA COMPILED BY: FRAN MASIN-MOYER: SAHS TEACHER AARON SCOTT DANIELLE NOTVEST STASHA SOSNOWICZ BRIAN BARR Preliminary Results of 2010 Salford Township Parks and Open Space Survey

Brief Overview 51 respondents Of those 51 respondents, 30 have lived the township for 20 or more years.

Cautions to Preliminary Findings Margin of Error (Using a 95% Confidence Interval) is approximately ±14% This results in a high level of sampling error. The sample is probably not representative of the population due to the low response rate, as well as the nature of the sampling method. This results in bias due to voluntary response of the survey, undercoverage, and nonresponse from those who did not respond to the survey.

Selected General Findings #1: How often do you visit Salford Township Parks? In general, a pretty large majority of those who responded do not visit the parks often (~90%).

Selected General Findings How would you rate Salford Park System? It would appear that many of those who responded have very little knowledge of the quality of the parks system

Selected General Findings If we just look at those respondents who appear to have a knowledge of the parks system, it appears as if a majority of them (~61%) view the quality of the parks system favorably.

Most respondents who rate the parks as poor, do not frequent the parks very often (~75%)

Most respondents who rate the parks favorably, do not frequent the parks very often (~89%)

Selected General Findings

Closer meet friends Location on a particular day Use Branchwood park Enjoy the broader scope of country/State Rec areas variety Township. Do not need more taxes Good facilities are available in other townships not people friendly Perkiomen trail is closer Playgrounds in other areas more convenient Use activity of my home What is wrong with your backyard!

Selected General Findings To summarize the data at this point: Respondents do not use the Salford Park System very often Even though they do not use the Salford Park System very often, they do view it favorably. The reasons that the respondents give for not using the Salford Park System appears to do with something that the Township is not providing (ex. No facility or team).

Park Development and Maintenance The question now arises as to whether or not the respondents think that the Park System should be developed further and maintained in order to entice them to visit and use the parks more often. The issue of taxes and how to pay for that development is also a question that arises from the aforementioned data.

Should Parks be Developed?-Preliminary Findings Question #7 is one way to assess the respondents attitudes towards developing and maintaining the Salford Park System. It would appear from the data that the respondents are not interested in developing any form of parks.

Should Parks be Developed?-Preliminary Findings Question #8 is another way to assess the respondents attitudes towards developing and maintaining the Salford Park System. It would appear from the data that the respondents are not interested in developing pedestrian and/or bike paths between any of the destinations. How important is the development of pedestrian and bicycle trails to connect…..?

Should Parks be Developed?-Preliminary Findings The results to #8 were consistent across respondents:

Should Parks be Developed?-Preliminary Findings Question #9 assesses the respondents willingness to support a tax increase to fund future development and maintenance of Salford Parks? It would appear as if the respondents would not be in favor of increasing tax money to develop and maintain parks.

Should Parks be Developed?-Preliminary Findings The data shows that most respondents do not think it is important to develop and/or maintain the Salford Park System, not would they want an increase in taxes to support this development and/or maintenance. If you break down the data from Question #9; however, you can see that those who would support a tax increase differ greatly from those who do not on a variety of important issues.

Support Tax Increase vs. Do Not Support Tax Increase Those who support a tax increase use the Park System more frequently Those who support a tax increase believe the development of parks (as seen in #7) is more important Those who support a tax increase believe the development of pedestrian/bike trails is more important between destinations (as seen in #8). In fact, in each of the three categories, a majority of those who support a tax increase selected Important Those who support a tax increase do not differ very much in their length of residency in the township (both groups have approximatly 84% of respondents living in township for 10 or more years. Those who support a tax increase actually have a larger percent of respondents who have lived in the township for 20 or more years67% vs 57%).

Open Space Preservation Questions #10 and #11 assess respondents opinions regarding Open Space Preservation and how funds should be spent. It is important to note that neither of these two questions involve respondents having to consider tax increasesunlike #9.

Open Space Preservation Question #10 assesses the respondents views as to which reasons to preserve open space is important to them. They could check up to 3 reasons. Looking at the top 3 reasons, we can conclude that respondents believe that maintaining already existing rural aspects of the township are the most important reasons to preserve open-space.

Open Space Preservation Question #11 assesses the way respondents would prefer spending open space funds. It would appear as if respondents would prefer spending funds on three of these choices equally, but would not prefer to spend funds on Land Acquisition for Park Development.

Open Space vs. Park Development/Maintenance Issue of Funding Respondents appear to not want to increase their taxes to develop and/or maintain parks. Respondents were not asked if they would be willing to develop and/or maintain parks if taxes were not raised. We can attempt to determine if respondents would be willing to develop and/or maintain parks if taxes were not raised by looking at the responses to #10 and #11.

Open Space vs. Park Development/Maintenance Issue of Funding

Interpretation of the two graphs of #10 and #11: 13 respondents checked Provide Recreational Opportunities for #10 and/or Land Acquisition For Park Development for #11. These 13 respondents were much more open to park development and/or maintenance, even if it meant raising taxes. 38 respondents checked neither Provide Recreational Opportunities for #10 nor Land Acquisition For Park Development for #11. These 38 respondents were not very open to the idea of park development and/ or maintenance and were not in favor of raising taxes for that purpose.

Open Space vs. Park Development/Maintenance Issue of Funding To summarize Open Space vs. Park Development/Maintenance and Issues of Funding: If taxes were not raised, respondents would still not be willing to use open space funds for park development and/or maintenance. Park Development/Maintenance appears to low on the priority list of respondents taken as a whole Open space funds, therefore, would be best spent on preserving and conserving the rural characteristics of the area, through farmland protection and land acquisition for open space preservation and wildlife and natural area restoration. Two distinct subgroups of the respondents differ on this issue, as well as many others. Further analysis on these two groups may be beneficial in helping make further decisions.

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