Philadelphia Becomes First City to Map Its Trails and Cultural Attractions with Google Trekker
This year, Philadelphia became the first city in the United States to partner with Google to catalog all City park trails as well as many cultural attractions for Google Street View. From May through October, in partnership with Fairmont Park Conservancy, two Philadelphia Parks & Recreation (PPR) employees—Conor Michaud and Gint Stirbys—walked over 400 miles of Philadelphia trails wearing a 50-pound Google Trekker backpack. The backpack, which was provided for free by Google, has a 15-lens camera system mounted on a green sphere attached to a pole that extends about two feet above the wearer’s head. Each lens points in a different direction so that when combined, the images can be stitched into panoramic views.
(Gint wearing the Google Trekker backpack, which has 15 camera lenses.)
Each day, Conor and Gint walked from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon in order to catch the best light for the cameras. One of them would clear obstacles and litter from the trails, while the other walked behind wearing the backpack.
Conor and Gint captured 100 different parks and points of interest, many of them within Philadelphia's largest public green spaces such as Fairmount Park, the Schuylkill River Trail, Wissahickon Valley Park, and Pennypack Park. In addition to documenting PPR trails and points of interest, PPR’s Google Trekker team also partnered with park rangers in Montgomery County to map over 50 additional miles of trails, including the Montgomery County sections of the Schuylkill River, Perkiomen, and cross-county trails.
“One of the last sites we worked on capturing was the Philadelphia Zoo,” said Conor. “We are thankful to our partners at the zoo for opening their gates to us an hour before the zoo officially opened, allowing us to capture unobstructed views of many of the animals and major exhibits.”
(Conor sports the Google Trekker backpack.)
Conor and Gint spent a large portion of the project capturing images of historic landmarks and cultural attractions. “We mapped the interior of the Shofuso Japanese Garden in West Fairmount Park, Fort Mifflin, Laurel Hill and Woodlands Cemeteries, the Vietnam, Korea, and Irish Memorials, and so much more,” Conor said. “Many of these parks play a significant role in Philadelphia's history, and we feel that the Google Trekker project will help draw attention to some of these sites that citizens may otherwise not know about.”
In early November, PPR submitted the data to Google, which will edit the images and then make them publicly accessible within six to twelve months. By the time summer is in full swing, the Trekker view should be up and running, and people should be able to utilize it to help decide what new trails and attractions they want to plan their weekends and holidays around.
Google Street View has mapped millions of miles of streets across the United States and the rest of the world, but Philadelphia is the first city where trails, parks, and cultural attractions are being captured. With one of the largest urban park systems in the country and hundreds of miles of trails, Philadelphia is a great city to try out the Google Trekker technology to capture the experience of visiting the City’s parks and other points of interest.
PPR and Fairmount Park Conservancy thank Google for featuring Philadelphia’s park system and cultural attractions on Google Street View.