Polls, regardless of the subject, never are definitive. Even when well-crafted and accurate, a poll is a snapshot of the moment in which it is conducted. People change their minds; events mitigate viewpoints.

Some polls inherently are suspect when they are conducted by a party with skin in the game who advocates a particular policy outcome, rather than by a third-party pollster more interested in accurate data. An interested party isn’t about to release a poll that contradicts its policy goal.

So it wasn’t surprising when 66% of respondents to a recent poll by the Pennsylvania Parks and Forest Foundation responded positively to the proposition that “funding for outdoor recreation facilities, such as parks, trails, lakes and overnight visitor facilities in parks and forests, should be considered a priority by the state government.”

But the poll closely reflects what Pennsylvanians already have demonstrated in the real world. During 2020 and 2021, amid pandemic restrictions, they flocked in record numbers to Pennsylvania’s 121 state parks and 20 state forests covering more than 2.2 million acres. Some parks don’t keep specific visitor records, but the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources reported that park visits were about 36% higher in 2021 than in 2019, the last prepandemic year.

And the turn to the outdoors was not reflected in park visits alone. Industry figures show that bicycle sales in Pennsylvania increased by more than 100% in 2021 and kayak sales rose by 85%.

So no poll is needed to advise state lawmakers on what to do on the basis of empirical evidence. They should agree with the Pennsylvania Parks and Forest Foundationand use $125 million of the state government’s $7.2 billion in pandemic recovery funds to address the $1.4 billion in overdue state park infrastructure work that has been identified by the DCNR.

It would be hard to identify a better or broadly effective use for that money. It not only would improve state property, but improve the environment and public health while supporting the growing fitness and tourism sectors.

And, from the politicians’ perspective, supporting state parks would be good for their own poll numbers.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre via TNS