THORNTON —Thornton residents and visitors to the city don’t need to bounce between their global positioning system and locator applications like GrubHub or Yelp to find parks, trails, restaurants or businesses.
In the last six months, Thornton officials have designed that residents can access on their phones or tablets that allow them to easily search for different locations and services within the city.
The dozen or more maps appear on the city’s website and will adjust to phones and tablets when accessed through the browser.
Ken Kopicky, an information technology system analyst with the city said that Thornton has put out several new geographic information systems (GIS) maps since last fall that have been tailored by city officials to be comprehensive, aesthetically pleasing and informative beyond what general information sites like Yelp accomplish.
“Technology has evolved to a point where it’s headed in a direction that’s mostly online, so we’re working to keep up with that trend,” Kopicky said. “We’ve also had a lot of requests for it. Residents will contact us and say, ‘it’s great that I can print out a map of the streets, but I’d really like something where I can search for my address and figure out what’s going on nearby me.'”
Maps like the will show the entire city, and then mark every single park in the system with a small icon that people can click on for directions, hours, park size and more.
There are 25 major parks in the city and so many small neighborhood parks and open spaces that many city officials have virtually lost count of all of them — until the finder map was developed.
“It all started when we recognized that we needed to improve the park listing and information about park facilities in Thornton,” said Andy Jennings, Thornton parks and golf manager. “We pulled together the information on our parks to include location, activities, amenities and more.”
Since it launched last fall, the park and facility finder interactive map had been accessed by about 375 different users.
Michelle Coslett, 35, is a Thornton resident who says that she has stuck to the same few parks in the city for most of the time that she and her family have lived there. She said she had never heard of the park finder map.
“My kids and I are always looking for new parks or lakes to walk around near home,” she said. “I didn’t know that there was an app where we could look those things up, but I think it’s a great idea and something I’ll be checking out.”
The city informs residents about the launching of a new interactive map through a monthly newsletter and on its website, but a lot of residents have missed those messages.
Thornton resident Christy Pyle, 36, saw the map while she and her son were playing at the city’s flagship park, Carpenter Park at 3498 E. 112th Ave. She said there were a lot more places to play in the city than she ever thought.
“Just glancing at that, I can see that there’s a least double the amount of parks than I thought,” Pyle said. “I think that’s great. We like to look for different parks in the summer that are less crowded than (Carpenter). That (app) is really convenient. I’ll have to look it up.”
Megan Mitchell: 303-954-2650, mmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Mmitchelldp
