Challenge:

Valley Forward Association brings business and civic leaders together to convene thoughtful public dialogue on regional issues and to promote cooperative efforts to improve the environment and livability of Valley communities. Valley Forward has worked with Maricopa County, and many cities throughout the county to help develop a regional trails system that can be enjoyed throughout the Valley. The public faced a problem, however, which was to be able to know how all of these trails connected, which trails were simply plans, and how to get leaders to understand that trails are a priority in the planning process.

Strategy:

Valley Forward made a goal is to lure more residents to venture outside and to lobby local government leaders to add more than 600 miles of new trails linking the regional gems while preserving open space. They asked DirectClarity to build the publicly accessible technology necessary to showcase 177 miles of trails, and allow Valley Forward members to upload trail information such as trailhead photos, and landmark descriptions in a simple, streamlined manner.

We utilized the Google Map API by integrating it with a MySQL database to store map longitude and latitude points, and associate trail gems with mapping coordinates while linking descriptive information through an easy-to-use web interface.