Dogan's Razor

A little while ago, we gently tweaked PNJ columnist Reginald Dogan for putting his feet up on the desk and gathering wool when he should have been pounding shoe leather. So today, it's only fair to salute him for a whole week's worth of real-life social science research performed on Pensacola Beach.

He did it not with shoe leather, but on wheels. Translated from News Journalese into scientific gobbledegook, this is what happened:

The Experiment

Hypothesis: "The dearth of parking... [is] part of the reason why locals stay away from the beach."
Alternate hypothesis: "[A] lack of parking [is] driving away visitors."

Dogan made multiple visits to the beach daily and kept a journal over seven consecutive days. He noted time of day, ease of finding a parking space, location of the space, and general availability. Limited to the most popular Quietwater parking area of boardwalk shops, restaurants, and bars, these are the raw results of his scientific observations, reduced to their essence:

Mid-day Data

Mid-day visits: 6
Number of visits < 1 minute needed to find a parking space: 5
Number of visits > 1 minute needed to find a parking space: 1
Number of visits no commercial district parking space available: 0

Evening Data

Evening/Nighttime visits: 7
Number of visits < 1 minute needed to find a parking space: 5
Number of visits > 1 minute needed to find a parking space: 2
Number of visits no commercial district parking space available: 0

Over the course of the week on only Saturday night did Dogan encounter enough of a parking problem at Quietwater to "do the sensible thing" and cross the intersection to the larger Casino Beach parking lot. There, parking space remained so ample, he writes, "we could play a spirited game of flag football with room left for bleachers and a concession stand."

Tuesday night's "Bands on the Beach" event was the only occasion when Dogan found parking to be even moderately challenging. At that popular summer time event he recorded:

7:30 p.m.: There's not a parking spot in sight. Cars are double parked, lined against the fence and on the sidewalks.
* * *
After cruising through the Casino Beach parking lot, I find one spot in the Pensacola Beach Visitors Information Center lot.

Research Results

Dogan concludes, "There is a parking problem on the beach — a couple times a year, maybe." So much for Buck Lee's claim that the Santa Rosa Island Authority needs to build an "$8 to $10 million parking ramp."

Inspired by these results, we now propose a new hypothesis, suitable for rigorous testing and scientific verification by future students of Pensacola Beach who aspire to follow in the hallowed tradition of Prof. C. Northcoat Parkinson. We call it --

Dogan's Razor

New Hypothesis: The more money governmental authorities want to spend building"improvements" on Pensacola Beach, the less probable is the actual need.