Vancouver: Save the Planet, Ride a Bike


Mission Statement:

Our app places aim and focus on accessibility to put emphasis on the importance in accommodating outdoor recreation 
in sustainable communities. With the creation of this app, it is our goal to create an interactive software whereby 
local residents, visitors and tourists can gain information about public washroom and park accessibility. Users will 
be shown the most effective bike routes to navigate throughout Vancouver in order to reach their areas of interest, 
and parks which fit their needs.

Problem Addressed:

Current compact city strategies put additional pressure on green structure within the city (Koppen, Sang, & Tveit.2014). 
Urban parks not only moderate the temperature in the city, they are sites for recreational purposes and provides safe routes
for different modes of transportation. It has been estimated that poor accessibility and lack of access to recreational 
areas accounts for around 3.3% of global deaths (WHO). Many studies have also shown that recreational spaces such as green 
space plays a pivotal role in population-level mental health (NCBI). Recent research has also further shown that the distance 
or proximity to a recreational landscape affects how people perceive their own health (Van den Berg et al., 2010). Urban parks 
have proven their value and importance as components of the urban infrastructure improving the quality of life. Urban parks 
offer ecological and social services to the population (recreation, leisure, better population health state), increase the 
economic, social and aesthetic value of urban ecosystems, offer the opportunity to reserve space for future town-plan projects
and assist in conserving local biological diversity. The size of urban parks represents an important indicator for assessing 
the sustainability and competitiveness of urban ecosystems - their availability is an expression of the housing quality (Ioja et. al.2010).
As previously stated, this application aims to bring together the growing importance of environmental sustainability with link 
to public accessibility as part of a sustainable urban system. Residents of lowincome communities are usually found to have lower 
physical activity, and this may be due partly to a disparity in access to parks and other recreation environments 
(Floyd, T & Whitt-Glover. 2009). This open data application is designed to be a contributing factor to reducing such disparities. 

Application Detail: 

The interactive data set allows the user to select bike and park related features on the map at their discretion and retrieve 
valuable information, such as the type of route for cycling or whether the chosen park contains a dog park. This part of the app 
is set up for user to be able to explore spatial data and derive conclusions specific do their needs. In addition, the user has 
the ability to toggle the washroom features on and off, which highlights public washroom facilities around the city.