Sometime this spring -- amid the usual bikers, joggers and amblers -- an odd looking tricycle will roll down the Boulder Creek Path snapping 360-degree photos as it goes.
With 21,000 votes, the Boulder Creek Path won a contest Monday to become one of the first off-road locations visited by the new Google Street View Trike, a cross between a mountain bike and trailer with a camera mounted on a pole in the back.
The trike will allow Google to complement its popular Street View function -- which gives users an on-the-ground perspective through their computer screens, including a look at store fronts, street signs and yards -- with a "path view" for places where cars can't go.
"We're very excited," said Marni Ratzel, bicycle and transportation planner for the city's Go Boulder program. "I think it's great for our residents as well as for tourists who come to Boulder to see this great amenity that we have. They can do that virtually prior to coming, and they can show their friends after they've been there.
"It's just a really cool tool."
The Boulder Creek Path beat out four other finalists in Google's parks and trails category -- the Capital Crescent Trail in Maryland and Washington, D.C.; the Centennial Trail in Washington; the Schuylkill River Trail in Pennsylvania; and the Stevens Creek Trail in California -- to win a visit from the trike.
The strong support for Boulder's trail, which amounted to more than one vote for every five city residents, may have had something to do with the staffers in Google's Boulder office.
"I think they did some work to get the vote out," said Elaine Filadelfo, Google spokeswoman. "They did some grassroots campaigning, I would say."
And while Google typically hires contractors to ride the trike, the company is looking at recruiting some of the avid cyclists who already work for Google in Boulder for the job, Filadelfo said.
The city of Boulder hopes that the trike's ride through Boulder marks the beginning of a deeper relationship between the city and Google's mapping programs. The city has applied to share data about its extensive bike path system with Google as a Base Map Partner.
If the city's proposal is accepted, people will be able to get directions for traveling in Boulder from Google Maps that are tailored for bikes, routing cyclists along multi-use paths and roads with bike lanes. The city already has its own mapping software at
gobikeboulder.net that does just that, but if Boulder can partner with Google, Go Boulder staffers hope that even more people will take advantage of the 360 miles of local bike routes.
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