Growing Cities and Mass Participant Sport Events: Traveling Behaviors and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Abstract

Fast-growing cities are expected to become a key contributor to the global climate crisis. A key characteristic of those urban districts is the accommodation of mass participant sport events. Sport entities, in collaboration with city governments, plan annually active participation sport events to promote their cities as tourism destinations. Mass participant sport events aim to attract more visitors to the cities and to establish a successful social and economically sustainable future to those places. Given the fact that transportation is a critical factor of the residents and the visitors’ behavior, it is crucial to research the quantity of CO2 emissions generated to those places in association with the travel behaviors of the active sport event participants. Data collected from an annual mass participant running event in a highly ranked growing city in the United States. Findings showed that most of the active sport event participants traveled more than 150 miles to participate in the race and they used their vehicles. The largest quantity of CO2 emissions derived from those participants who traveled a round trip of, on average, 500 miles. The long-distance travelers alone generated 338 million kg of CO2 emissions. The conclusions recommend that growing cities and sport events should target long-distance travelers for promotions concerning sustainable transportation. Consequently, mass participant sport events could play a crucial role in the development of growing cities, and, in turn, growing cities that control long-distance traveling behaviors can reduce the global amount of greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on the global environmental destruction.

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