Apex parks taking inventory, one step at a time

“I think the other day I got eight miles of walking, that's like 25,000 steps,” she said recently at the town's skate park. She is mapping every fountain, trashcan, bench and lamp post in every park in town. “ I've gotten a lot of parks done already collecting the data.”

Armed with a handheld GPS device, Taylor walks the fence lines and makes notes where each asset is located. Pointing to the device's screen she explained what she has gathered so far. “Click on it, it will tell you what it is -- this is the dog waste station I mapped yesterday.”

The goal is an inventory map, with all the information in one place.

“We want to be more efficient,” said Craig Setzer, the park operations manager. “We want feel like we can get to calls easier, quicker, have an understanding of where problems exist when people call in and touch base with their concerns.”

Angela Reincke is a Greenway planner for the Town of Apex. “I think what we like about it is it's shareable, and it's consistent shareable data," she said.

Reincke points out the information will be available online. “Through new applications, computers, technology, so if they want to find something, or report a problem with something, we're able to find those things, fix them," she said.

The information can also be used to help incase of an emergency. “We're working on now providing a parks and Greenway map that will show people all the entrance points, that will allow us to direct our police if an emergency call comes in and someone says I'm behind this house, or this neighborhood or this Greenway,” Reincke said

For Taylor, the project comes with a personal benefit: “Definitely getting my exercise which is good, she said.

The Parks Department is just one of many departments in the town involved in the project.