Vienna’s parks, such as Meadow Lane Park, are important to town residents’ happiness.
On the whole, Vienna residents are pleased with their town and its services and believe it’s a great place to live and raise children. That was the overall result of a professionally conducted survey done recently on the Town’s behalf.
“People have a positive opinion of the Town,” said Ron Vine, senior vice president with ETC Institute, which conducted the survey. “They have a high level of satisfaction with Town services and the value they receive for their tax dollars.”
On Feb. 3, Vienna awarded a $12,000 contract to ETC to obtain resident feedback in the Town’s first statistically valid, community-wide survey. It was done to learn citizens’ satisfaction levels with town services and programs. Vienna also wanted to compare itself to similar-sized towns.
“For Vienna, 90 percent of the community was highly satisfied.”
— Ron Vine, ETC Institute
If town officials know how happy – or not – residents are with the town’s offerings, they can determine whether Vienna is delivering services in the most efficient and effective manner.
THE SURVEY also lets them know citizens’ priorities, which is a valuable tool during budgeting and strategic-planning processes.
ETC sent out 2,000 surveys to a random sampling of people representing Vienna both demographically and geographically. It hoped at least 300 residents would respond, and 403 actually did. The written survey didn’t include commercial businesses and other non-residential institutions. Only people living within the Town limits were eligible to participate.
Vine reported the survey results during a June 9 work session of the Town Council. Regarding citizens’ opinion of Vienna, he said 73 percent believe it’s an excellent place to live and 79 percent say it’s an excellent place to raise children.
“By 4-1, they’re generally satisfied with town services – police, parks and recreation, town buildings and governmental services,” said Vine. “Their perceptions of safety – walking in their neighborhoods during the day – are 87 percent. They felt less safe on the W&OD Trail.”
People said Vienna does an outstanding job communicating with its residents, and 61 percent said the refuse collection was very good. However, when it came to certain topics, dissatisfaction outweighed satisfaction. These were the traffic flow on Maple Avenue, the traffic signals and the availability of parking on Church Street.
“They’re very satisfied with the town employees – who are the basis of the community – because they’re the people the residents deal with the most,” said Vine. “We also combined satisfaction and importance, and the things most important to people are the maintenance of town streets, sidewalks and infrastructure – 56 percent said it was in their top three priorities – continued attention to town services and the quality of police protection.”
VIENNA RESIDENTS also care about how well the town parks and landscaping are maintained. And in the southwest portion of town, maintaining the parks and recreation facilities was of paramount importance. Throughout Vienna, litter and debris cleanup on private property also matters to residents.
“Satisfaction ratings for Vienna services are generally higher than in other communities,” said Vine. “We’ve done this survey in about 200 communities across the country and, for Vienna, 90 percent of the community was highly satisfied. And Vienna is at least 8 percent higher in satisfaction than the mean average for the Mid-Atlantic and U.S.”
Noting that 90 percent of town residents felt safe in their neighborhoods at night, Vine said, “That’s a big number. The satisfaction level with public involvement in decision-making is also high.”
He said 38 percent of the Vienna residents surveyed use public transportation, especially Metro, and 60 percent of the responding households ride a bike mainly for exercise and recreation.
As for capital improvements, street reconstruction is most important to town residents. “The overall conclusion from the survey is that people are highly satisfied with the town’s communication with the public, police protection and maintenance of the local parks,” Vine told the Council members. “So keep prioritizing these things and preparing for the future.”