THE ASSESSMENT

Assessment of Pomona Parks

To begin the discussion of Pomona’s parks, seven parks were selected at random from a list of 30 within the city limits of Pomona. The parks selected were Ganesha, Philips Ranch (Decker), Memorial, Powers, Washington, Jaycee, and Cesar Chavez. These parks are scattered around the city and all were a distance greater than 1 mile from each other. Acreage was quite varied from as high as 60 acres (Ganesha) and as low as .75 (Powers). Assessment was conducted over the course of several days during daylight hours along with a 7-question survey to determine demographic use, frequency of visits and an overall user rating of the parks. Informal interviews were conducted during the survey process and improvements, concerns, recommendations, and enjoyments were noted from active survey participants. 

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Assessment Tool (EAPRS)

In an effort to normalize the rating of each park, an assessment tool known as the Environmental Assessment of Parks and Recreational Spaces (EAPRS) was used for each park that examined various elements and equipment of typical use (i.e. playground equipment, BBQ grills, water fountains, etc.) with generally high reliability (Engelberg et al., 2016). The EAPRS tool is designed to perform a more comprehensive assessment of each amenity like measure width of park pathways and distance from parking lots to playground equipment, however, to maximize efforts in other parts of the research project, assessment was focused on amenities listed on the City of Pomona’s website along with criteria from the EAPRS that were also present in each park but not listed as an amenity like pathways and benches (Engelberg et al., 2016). Each park was scored by members of the research team and agreed upon before a final score was submitted. To remain consistent, the criteria for each amenity and scoring was taken from the outline given by the publishers for the EAPRS tool (“Environmental Assessment of Public Recreation Spaces (EAPRS) Tool | Active Living Research”).

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PEX and NOAL Scales

There are two rating scales used to assess each amenity and each is given a coded number of 0-3 or 1-3. The PEX scale is used to assess the quality and condition of the category in question with 0=none present, 1=poor conditions, 2=Fair, and 3=Excellent condition. This PEX scale was used to assess park pathways, seating, restrooms, water fountains, landscaping, and barbecue grills. For example, in assessing the water fountains, a 3 rating for a water fountain is that it is accessible to people of various height including children or people in wheelchairs, water pressure is sufficient to propel the water far enough away to drink easily, is clean and free of rust, and that the water temperature is cool to cold after running for approximately 10 seconds. In assessing the landscaping, a color pallet and overall cleanliness is the determining factor. A rating of 3 is given to park and recreation spaces that have colorful landscapes with splashes of bright colors like flower beds or budding trees with colorful flowers. It is also necessary to consider the conditions of the landscape like edged pathways, lacking weeds, manicured open spaces, and tree trimming.

NOAL scoring has a 1-3 scale and is used to assess the quantity of each amenity. 1=none, 2=Some, and 3=Many. The NOAL scaling was used to assess playground equipment, sports facilities, green space, picnic tables, shelter or gazebos, handicap accessibility, and parking lot and spaces. An example of green space scoring would be in an area that is conducive to a soccer game, game of catch with a football or baseball with ample room, or tossing the Frisbee around would be given a score of 3, while an area with a smaller yard in a neighborhood park would likely be given a score of 2.

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Survey

A 7-question survey was conducted at each park to willing participants during their activity within the park. Questions were centered on demographic information (age, race/ethnicity), what activity prompted the visit to the park and their typical reason for visiting, their frequency in visiting the parks, if they considered the park to be a health benefit, the distance they had to travel to the park and an overall rating of the park on a 5-point Likert scale. The scale ranged from a 1 as a poor park, lacking or poor quality amenities and facilities to a 5 rating which meant the park has excellent facilities in great condition and all amenity needs were met. The surveys were conducted on a Friday and Saturday morning and afternoon between 9am and 4pm as well as a Monday and Wednesday evenings between 3:30pm and 8:00pm. The variance in visitation was directly influenced by the schedules of the researchers during the week. The weekend timeframe was essential given that the majority of park use is during the weekend (Veitch et al. 2015). The survey results were meant to highlight the overall trend of use of Pomona’s parks, frequency of use of park visitors and their ratings. It has been shown that there is a variation in preference of park use based on race and ethnic background (Payne et al. 2002; Reed et al. 2012; Rodriguez et al. 2017).