Storymap Highlights Public Works Projects

The City of Rancho Cordova's Public Works Department wanted to showcase to residents the various projects the City was working on. 

Interwest provides GIS Services to the City and was asked to create a map board which depicts various public works projects along with a description, status, a site photo, and funding source(s) for the City's State of the City event in November 2015. 

November 2015 Map Board

The map board was a big success and it was decided that it should be updated annually each year at the State of the City. 

November 2016 Map Board

Knowing this information would work well in a digital format as a story map, in early 2016 a plan was enacted to create a story map with a similar look at feel. A small group of people in the Public Works Department came together to coordinate this project.

The primary goal is to identify some of the many projects managed through the City's Capital Improvement Plan and Community Enhancement Fund (CEF). The application includes projects at various stages of progress from planning through construction and completion as well as ongoing projects, and for each it provides the project name, a brief description, a representative photo, as well as the funding sources, and contact information where you can learn more. 

Story Map 2016

The challenge was to gather all the necessary information on up to 50 projects managed various project managers in the department. In order to do this a MS Excel spreadsheet with all the projects was setup, providing project managers a familiar way to update the details of their projects. This table was linked into MS Access which also made the data available to GIS applications. Once the updates were complete, the GIS staff used model builder to join the table and populate a GIS layer for the tour points which could then simply be exported to a CSV file for easy uploading to ArcGIS Online.

Model Builder

Updates to this application are planned quarterly as time permits (January, April, July, and October) at which time old projects can removed, existing projects can be updated, and new projects can be added. Check it out at: http://arcg.is/2j1wI1Q 

For general questions regarding the projects in this story map please contact Rancho Cordova PublicWorks at (916) 851-8710.

For help, more information, or to report problems with this application please contact Brad Findlay, GIS Analyst at bfindlay@cityofranchocordova.org