Municipal investment tool

Wheel Park ROI Calculator

Estimate the economic return of a public skatepark, pump track, or combined wheel park. Built for advocates presenting to city councils, parks departments, and planning committees. Toggle pillars on or off to match the case you're making.

Facility type

Facility scale

Construction cost

Daily users P2 input

Drives visitor spending (P2) only — not used in P1

Operating days / year

300 days/yr

Direct user economic surplus

Consumer willingness-to-pay value

High confidence

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Source: Kemp (2025), Journal of Economic Analysis — Travel Cost Model, Lauridsen Skatepark, Des Moines IA. Baseline: $488K/yr from a $6.2M facility (7.9%/yr). Rates here (3–7.2%) are scaled down for smaller or less destination-oriented facilities, reflecting lower travel-cost surplus per user. P1 is driven by construction cost, not user count.

Visitor & tourism spending

Out-of-town visitor economic impact

MTB proxy

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Mountain bike tourism proxy data. Visitor spending benchmarks from Whistler Bikepark and NW Arkansas studies ($94–$133/day range). No equivalent peer-reviewed dataset exists for pump tracks or skateparks. Visitor fractions (1.5–4%) are intentionally conservative. Multiplier: 1.72× (OIA, 2022).

Combined annual value

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per year · community economic value, not municipal revenue

Value recovery

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Annual return

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Value recovery progress (20-yr horizon) —

Methodology notes

High confidence — peer-reviewed

P1 = construction cost × annual surplus rate. Kemp (2025) Lauridsen baseline: $488K/yr from $6.2M = 7.9%/yr. Rates here (3–7.2%) are scaled down for smaller facilities: neighborhood parks serve mostly local users whose near-zero travel costs generate minimal TCM-measured surplus. Destination facilities approach the Lauridsen ratio. P1 is independent of daily user count.

Medium confidence — proxy data

P2 = daily users × visitor fraction (1.5–4%, ascending by scale) × operating days × proxy daily spend × 1.72× multiplier (OIA, 2022). Operating days are adjustable to reflect local climate: 340+ days for mild climates (GA, TX, FL), ~300 for temperate (CO, PA, NC), ~265 for northern (MN, WI, NY), ~220 for harsh winters (ND, MT, AK). Spending benchmarks from mountain bike tourism research — no equivalent dataset exists for wheeled sport parks. Income adjustment: MTB participant households skew above $75K median income vs. ~$54K for skateboarding (NSGA survey data); pump track visitor spend estimates are set higher to reflect the MTB-family demographic, while skatepark estimates are reduced accordingly. Wheel park figures split the difference.