Borinquen Trail Economic Research

Last January, our team collected information for an ongoing economic impact analysis of the trail, which will provide hard numbers to prove its value. Dylan Gehring and David Soto visited existing trail segments that will one day be connected and integrated into the future 595 mile Borinquen Trail. They ran trail counts every day during peak-use times and collected trail user spending data by conducting brief surveys. They also examined portions of the old railroad embankments and bridge systems that are not currently trails. Among the trails surveyed, Paseo Lineal Río Bayamón proved to be the most popular and highest-quality segment.

Dylan and David conducted seven days of consecutive data collection across five trails (2 trail segments were repeated to determine the factor of difference between weekdays and weekends) which garnered about 550 responses. The selection of the trails studied was tied to the necessity of having an example of each typology: urban, suburban, rural, beachfront, and natural preserve.

 

This data will be used for an economic impact analysis and to continue to assess and design future segments of the Borinquen Trail.