Glendale Parks: There’s an app for that
As summer approaches, parks visitors may want to check out a city of Glendale Web application that showcases the amenities at each open space. It even gives a three-day weather forecast for the city and provides driving, walking and biking directions.
The application, at parksmap.glendaleca.gov was a team effort between the Community Services & Parks and Information Services Department, said Sevag Garabetian, a community services supervisor.
Prior to launching the interactive map about a year ago, the parks department had a black-and-white PDF that pinpointed each park, but the map didn’t go into detail about park offerings. People trying to find a park would then have to match up the park on the map with a matrix grid showing park details.
So parks officials asked their tech counterparts to bring the two documents together into an interactive map and “Park Compass” was born.
There are no statistics on how many people are using the application, Garabetian said, and he hasn’t received much feedback about it. However, he still thinks it is an amenity for residents, he said. While parks users can still call into City Hall to find out information, they also have the option of looking it up online.
“I think it will just make life easier for whomever is interested in any type of information like that,” Garabetian said. “The person requesting that information should have it available to them.”
The application shows a map of the city with green markers for each of the city’s 45 parks. Clicking on a marker will produce information about that particular park. Users can also search by location to find parks near them.
If you’re planning a picnic, for example, you can see that Pelanconi Park has eight nonreservable tables and three barbecues while Scholl Canyon & Lower Scholl Canyon parks have 33 reservable picnic tables, nine nonreservable tables and four barbecues.
Or if you’re searching for a place to play tennis for free, by clicking on Oakmont View and Montrose parks, you would learn that they both have two free courts with lights. On the hunt for a basketball court? There is one at Emerald Isle and Verdugo parks, according to the application.
Garabetian said he wants to create a function that lets users search by amenity, rather than by park or location, in the second version of the application, which doesn’t have a set timeline for completion.
Park Compass also has park watering schedules, a trails map and several brochures with more information.
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