By Adam Kaye
North County Times
February 19, 2006
ENCINITAS
---- A San Francisco economist is recommending that the city
upgrade its "people counters," the hidden devices
that track visits to Encinitas beaches.
Beach visits can be tied to spending ---- by visitors and by
the government ---- and for that reason, policy-makers should
have reliable beach attendance estimates, Philip King of San
Francisco State University said last week.
"You'd be surprised how little we know," King said.
King, an associate professor and chair of the university's
economics department, has drafted a report examining the
performance of six of the eight people-counters installed in
Encinitas. The counters use lasers to tally passers-by along
stairways and paths.
When a person crosses the beam it triggers the counter. The
data is stored and retrieved periodically.
The report examines problems with the devices ---- such as
vandalism or mechanical malfunctions ---- and makes a case for
the city to purchase better ones, although it does not offer
specific information on costs.
City officials released the report to the North County Times
last week.
In earlier reports, King and city staffers have estimated that
each trip to city beaches by local residents produces an
average of $8 of local spending. Out-of-town visitors spend an
average of $22 per beach visit in Encinitas stores,
restaurants and hotels.
Encinitas' official estimate for local spending tied to beach
visits is $44 million per year.
"That's an impressive number," said City Councilman
James Bond, Encinitas' delegate to a regional, shoreline
panel. "(The beaches are) an economic engine as well as a
popular place to visit."
Keeping count
To keep that engine calibrated, Bond said, it's good to have
the best possible information to compute beach attendance and
related spending.
King says electronic counters work better than counts by
people, which often rely on cars in a parking lot and
statistical formulas to arrive at attendance totals.
Instead of relying upon extrapolations, electronic counters do
their work round-the-clock. Still, the counters can have
shortcomings, as King explains in his report.
Vandals damaged the devices when they first were installed in
2003; the lunchbox-sized counters now are mounted in hidden
locations.
The counters work best along stairways and narrow paths, which
represent most of routes to the beach in Encinitas. Bluffs as
high as 70 feet border much of the city's 6.1-mile shoreline.
Sometimes the counters malfunction, the report states. If two
or more people cross the laser beam at the same time, only one
person is counted. Conversely, a surfboard being carried to or
from a beach can trigger the counter more than once.
If people run up and down beach paths or stairways multiple
times for exercise, those trips can create false counts.
The city does not audit its counts, King says, and his report
does not offer margins of error.
The counter at Encinitas' northernmost beach provides flawed
data, the report states, because the device can't tell whether
visitors are going to the Encinitas or Carlsbad side of the
sand.
Moonlight Beach is Encinitas' busiest, with nearly 30,000
visits tallied last August. On a busy day, the report states,
attendance at Moonlight exceeds that of all other Encinitas
beaches combined. Counters don't work well there, however,
because Moonlight has multiple access points and some of them
are too wide.
While the devices undercount visits to Moonlight Beach, they
tend to overcount trips to Stone Steps and Grandview beaches
because surfboards tend to trip the devices more than once,
the report states.
King and his students checked all this during multiple visits
to the city last summer, when they compared electronic counts
against ones by the students.
His report offers ways to correct over- and undercounting. For
instance, the report suggests multiplying the counter's totals
by 0.74 at Stone Steps because surfboards can trip the
counters twice. At Moonlight Beach, tallies should be
multiplied by 3.6 to compensate for undercounted visits.
Dollars and sands
King recommends that the city purchase improved counting
devices that can tell whether a beach visitor is coming or
going and that transmit data immediately to a computer at City
Hall.
The devices cost "several thousand" dollars each,
King said. He said he is investigating costs. The number of
counters the city purchases would depend upon its budget and
available grants.
"This information is extremely valuable," King said,
"not only for the city, but also for scholars and public
policy-makers interested in beach attendance patterns."
With reliable data, city staffers can analyze trends and
derive economic conclusions from events such as red tides or
cloudy weather, which reduce beach trips, said Kathy Weldon,
coordinator of the city's coastal management program.
The data also can assist policy decisions.
The city's capital improvement program includes planned,
multimillion-dollar improvements to Moonlight Beach and to the
access at Beacon's Beach, which today is a sandy trail.
Then there are day-to-day costs. In the 2005-06 fiscal year,
the city expects to spend $700,000 for marine safety services,
which include lifeguard salaries and supplies.
Beach replenishment projects send the dollar figures higher
still.
The San Diego Association of Governments, a regional planning
agency, spent $17.5 million in 2001 to place sand on 12
beaches in the county. Several beaches in North County,
including three in Encinitas, received a share of the sand.
The Army Corps of Engineers last year published a report
recommending a 50-year, $30.1 million sand replenishment
program to protect ocean bluffs in Encinitas and Solana Beach.
"Wouldn't it be nice to know if more people came to the
beach when you add sand?" King said. "We really
don't know that."
Officials in Carlsbad want better information on beach visits
in that city and have scheduled a presentation from King in
March, he said.
Carlsbad is considering counters, but the devices would not
work well in much of the city because the access points are
either too wide or privately owned, he said.
Elsewhere, in Solana Beach, King's work provided substance to
a state Coastal Commission report that assigns a $248,000
"loss of recreational benefits fee" to a condominium
association that plans to build a 120-foot-long sea wall on
the beach.
Las Brisas Condominium Association has sued the commission.
Its lawsuit claims King's report "is riddled with
numerous factual and methodological errors" for computing
beach attendance.
"The big bone of contention is how many people go to
Fletcher Cove," King said. "I have my estimate and
the (litigants) have theirs and environmentalists have theirs
---- they're all different. When there is no methodology it's
easy to criticize mine."
Driving the engine
Lawsuits seemed the farthest thing from the minds of two
tourists in Encinitas on a blustery day last week.
Laura and Shawn Bowen said they had no idea they had walked
past a counter as they descended the timber stairway to the D
Street beach in Encinitas.
The couple from Boston, however, understood that they were
driving the economic engine that is the city's beaches.
"Our visit is focused on Encinitas," Shawn Bowen
said.
"The beaches in particular," his wife added quickly.
They brought to the beach two smoothies, for which they paid
about $5 each. Laura Bowen, a travel agent, said they planned
on buying beach towels, but at $25 each, they decided to pass.
She instead sat on her sandals and reclined against her
husband's legs.
Aside from air fare, all of their other spending would stay in
Encinitas, the couple said. That includes $100 a night at a
vacation rental cottage Laura discovered on the Internet,
restaurant tabs, and food and beverages for their kitchenette.
Shawn Bowen, a financial consultant, said the couple's
departure was delayed by the blizzard that socked the East
Coast.
Last Wednesday, the romantic vacation, blue sky and
wind-whipped ocean seemed nothing but pleasing to him.
"I would give it four stars," he said.
Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 943-2312 or akaye@nctimes.com.
Encinitas beach economics
Estimated impact of beaches on local economy: $44 million
Estimated spending by locals for each trip to one of the
city's beaches: $8
Estimated spending by out-of-town visitors for each trip to
one of the city's beaches: $22
--- Source, city of Encinitas
Web links:
www.ci.encinitas.ca.us
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