Spatial Analysis

    All the analysis that was performed was done in the hope of coming to a understanding of where the best place in Port Moody would be to place a new recreation centre.  The next few maps are a digital display of the steps that I took.  With each map there is a sentence or two describing what is being looked at and why I performed the analysis that I did.

    This is the City of Port Moody before any manipulation took place:

    I felt it important to do a distance analysis of the parks and recreation centres that are currently in place so I could get a feel for what the city planners had done in the past.

    I queried the municipality shape file and the census shape file for the municipality to equal Port Moody creating a new shape file for each.  These are the census regions of Port Moody:

    When comparing the census tracts and the municipality you will notice that the North Western portion is missing.  This is due to the fact that I chose not to include it.  When creating census tracts the government included that portion with surrounding areas such as Belcarra and Anmore which are separate municipalities.  I believe that they did this due to the fact that they are sparsely populated and consist mainly of provincial parks and lakes and beaches.  The census tract that I chose to exclude was extremely large and would have been little use to me as I want to place the recreation centre in a densely populated area.
    I cut the Port Moody road network from street network file and this was the outcome:
        From my own general knowledge I queried out the the roads that I would consider major roads that are wide and busy making it hard for young children to cross.  This was my output:
    Using the Bus and Skytrain Timetable map I queried the names of the roads to get the bus routes.  Many of the bus routes ran along the major roads from the previous query.  This was the outcome:

    Using the magazine "City Guide '99" I digitized all the current parks and recreation centres.  These are their locations:

    I made the assumption at the beginning of my project that less than $12 000 would be considered low income and more than or equal to $50 000 would be high income per person.  I then looked at the census data, determined how many people in each census tract were in either grouping and then entered that data into the Port Moody Census theme's table.  I then reclassified the coverage into three different classes so that the census tract with the lowest to the highest number of people in each grouping(<$12 000 and > or = $50 000) could be seen.  These were my findings:

    Looking at the two coverages one can see that the census on the North East side has both the highest number of people in both the high as well as the lowest income.  I cut that census tract from the others and overlaid all my coverages previously talked about over it.  This is the census tract in which I want to place the recreation centre as it has the highest number of people in the low income category:
    I am making the assumption that people from other areas of Port Moody are going to want to use this recreation centre and are therefore going to need major access routes to it including the bus routes.  People who use the bus will not want to walk more then two blocks once they step off the bus.  I set the arbitrary numbers of 100 and 200 metres as buffers in which the recreation should be from the major access routes.  This is the outcome:

    I also thought it important that the recreation centres should not be placed too closely to any of the current parks or recreation centres.  I did a distance analysis between each park and recreation centre and this is what was produced:

    From these last few analysis I have decided on the new location for a recreation centre.  It allows for the centre to be placed within walking distance of two separate bus routes while still appearing to be far enough away from the other parks and recreation centres.  It is also on the north side of the major road that cuts through the area which is where the majority of the people will live as on the west side of the major road is water.
       As a final step to see how ell the placement of the recreation centre worked I did a final distance analysis from each of the parks and recreation centres, this time including the new recreation centre.
    The distance between the new recreation centre and the other ones is not quite ideal as I was hoping for at least 400 metres in between the new site and the old ones.  The one site that is within 288 metres of the new site is a park though and not a recreation centre, it would have been worse if it was located that close to another recreation centre.  Although this is not the ideal setting that I wanted for the site I feel that this site is the most suitable.

    Using the raw data as a measure, I have decided what amenities the recreation centre would provide to the community.  There is a relatively large population of teenagers in census tract 260.03 relative to the number of seniors.  The recreation centre that I would build would be centred towards teens and their needs.  The needs of the other residents would also be met but the recreation centre would predominately focus on teenager activities.  Open gym times would be held for basketball and other indoor court activities.  A lounge room would be included that would have video games and movies.  There is little for teens to do at night in Port Moody.  Providing an area that catered to the teens would keep some of them off the street at night.
 
 

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