Greenspace Alliance of Canada's Capital / Alliance pour les espaces verts dans la capitale du Canada

City competition under way
Deadline for voting is 5 p.m., Jan 28, 2011
Go to http://apps4ottawa.ca/en/ideas/102 , register, and vote!
 
Ben Glossop of the Poets' pathway Committee provides the following description:
 
The Poets’ Pathway is a 30-kilometre walking and biking path though Ottawa, created to memorialize Ottawa’s poets, especially those 19th Century poets brought here to help create a sense of national identity for a new country.
 
The Poets' Pathway App is designed to be a virtual map, and much more. This map would take the place of signposts on the land itself, would highlight the pathway's connections, and help people find their way.
 
The PP App could be utilized with a GPS programme. Markers placed on the programme would act like signposts. Because these posts aren’t physical, they are much more than just posts. They give the user of the app a chance to hear and see a poem read on video at a particular spot on the path, or to hear about the ecology of the area, or hear a song, or local history, or even advice about exercise.
It would be easy for the app to provide textual information about the Poets' Pathway as well as photos, and sound and video files.
 
A GPS would not be necessary, however, as most of the information on how to navigate the Poets' Pathway is already on the Poets' Pathway website, as written directions. www.poetspathway.ca, or www.poetspath.ca
 
On the Poets’ Pathway website, the entire route of more than 30 kilometres is broken into 12 walks with descriptions, photos and directions on how to navigate the trip. Devices like an odometer or a timer could help with navigation by counting a person’s steps or predicting the time it would take someone to reach each signpost based on their speed.
 
For the app, additional information could be added, like the location of nearby buses, cafés, parking, washrooms, bicycle shops, medical help. Hand-drawn maps or street maps or satellite photos could be used. Many of the resources to make such an app have been developed already, by groups like WikiTravel and the app, GPSmyCity.com. Information about the land the Poets' Pathway travels across would be available through the city, the NCC and the Poets’ Pathway Committee.
 
This app would also be a platform easily transferred for other apps used to help people navigate other areas and green spaces of the city, much like a Walkman tour one would rent at an art gallery.
 
The Poets' Pathway runs through green space that was appropriated in the 1950's to be used as a ring road through Ottawa. (The idea was scuttled in the 1960's.) Incredibly, it is still 90% green and has great connectivity. It also maintains the same spirit of wilderness that inspired so many of our 19th Century poets who were brought to the capital to help create a sense of national identity. In 2009, the city provided a grant to help fund the pathway, and an app created by the city to help its citizens enjoy and navigate the area would go a long way to celebrating the heritage monument that is the Poets' Pathway.