A number of municipalities along with other partners in the West Kootenay have received some funding to develop a new app that could help you stay safer on the roads. Andrea Wilkey is the Executive Director with Community Futures Central Kootenay and explains how the idea came about.
“We did engage the public through the Thought Exchange platform and the topic that rose to the top was transportation. So we looked at how could we use existing data and make it readily available to the public through an app that’s going to help overcome travel issues, so knowing when roads are closed, safety issues, assess to ride sharing, things like that.”
The municipalities of Rossland, Trail, Nelson and Castlegar are involved and contributed $500 each.The project was also recently chosen as one of four to receive funds through the BC Smart Communities pilot project. It’s a program designed to help small, rural centres access technology, make their communities safer and more connected. $40,000 was awarded for the app and Wilkey says if all goes well it should be launched by the end of next year.
Other partners involved include the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary, the Regional District of Central Kootenay, Nelson and area Economic Development Partnership, Lower Columbia Initiatives Economic Development, Community Futures Greater Trail, Selkirk College, the Applied Research and Innovation Centre, Kootenay Lake School District, the Nelson Cares Society, Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy, i4c Innovation, Martech Smart Solutions, and the Selkirk Geospatial Research Centre.
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