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Session Title: Assessing Sport Facility Quality in an Urban Context

Description: Park and recreation departments are responsible for managing a large inventory of sport fields, courts and other playing areas, yet budget constraints can make make it difficult for park and recreation managers to maintain their physical infrastructure. Using a modified version of the Community Stakeholder Park Audit Tool (CPAT; Kaczynski et al, 2012), we comprehensively assessed all sport facilities managed by a large, urban park and recreation department in the northeastern U.S. to assess various dimensions of facility quality (n= 1,495). Overall, observations were conducted at 276 athletic fields, 385 ball diamonds, 454 basketball courts, 33 hockey courts, 4 ice rinks, 44 miscellaneous courts, 43 swimming pools and 256 tennis courts. The most common safety and appearance concerns of the surrounding community was heavy traffic (37%), followed by excessive litter (22%), poorly maintained properties (18%) and graffiti (17%). Overall, the average quality of facilities was coded below the midpoint of the 5-point Likert scale (M= 2.49, SD= 1.03), with only 16.5 percent of facilities rated above the mid-point (i.e., above average). This data provides specific and actionable feedback to inform the facility-specific upgrades that are required to boost quality.

Topic(s): Data and Evaluation, Operations and Maintenance, Planning and Design, Recreation Programming, Sports

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