Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Troutdale committee launches volunteer push to update trail maps and improve park connectivity
Loading...
Summary
Members agreed to recruit volunteers to walk trails with city GIS staff, capture route shape files, and develop clearer signage and mapped routes to better connect parks, with an eye to grant funding for off-street trail and bike-path projects.
Committee members spent a large part of the April 15 meeting discussing how to make Troutdale's parks and trails more connected and visible to residents.
Frank Stevens and others proposed mapping walking and biking routes that link parks, adding signage for hidden access points such as stairway trails, and creating phone-friendly route layers that show predesigned loops for foot or bike users. Staff proposed a practical first step: recruit volunteers to walk trails with iPads and save shape files for the city's GIS so staff can update map layers.
"What Austin is going to ask me for if we're going to update GIS maps of trails is: take this iPad and go walk the trail and hit the button when you start and when you stop," staff said, noting volunteers could capture the accurate routes.
Members offered to volunteer to walk local trails and suggested the updated routes could later be turned into on-phone "blue-loop" options (walking or biking loops with time/amenity estimates) or used for visitor-center materials and grant applications. Staff also noted available funding sources for bike-path and trail projects and said next steps include coordinating volunteer data collection with the city GIS analyst.
