A roadrunner on the information highway.

Park and recreation agencies and park districts across the country are developing Home Pages on the Internet as a fast, easily accessible way of sharing information with local users. As more and more Web pages pop up along the information highway, park and recreation enthusiasts--along with citizens who don't traditionally utilize public recreation services--can log on, and in a few clicks, access detailed information on special events, class schedules, league sign-up, facility times and offerings, trail maps, and the like.

Although it is becoming easier and less expensive to set up a Web page, the process is still time consuming and cumbersome. Metro Parks, which serves Summit County (OH), was recently afforded a unique opportunity to establish a Web site through a new high-speed, online service from Time Warner. Their site--which is larger and more graphic-intensive than anything that the agency would develop on its own--was developed at no cost to the agency under a program that emphasized local content.

Metro Parks was selected to participate in Time Warner Cable's first high speed, cable-based computer service. This service, named after the famous Warner Brothers cartoon character, Road Runner, provides residents of Summit County and surrounding areas with the ability to access the World Wide Web from their cable television hookup at speeds up to a hundred times faster than using conventional modems. Metro Parks' web site contains more than 100 pages of information and more than 300 high-quality graphic images and colorful photographic scenes of the parks. Because of Road Runner's speed, these pages can be accessed immediately in the home using the same cable hookup that provides cable television.

Metro Parks' new web site has opened this regional park agency to the world of electronic communication and promotion media. Users of the cable system and the customers of the Metro Parks are now just a mouse click away from receiving up-to-date information about their park system and are able to download park maps, monthly newsletters and calendars of events. Reservation forms, season swim pass applications and a variety of other program registration materials are planned for the future. Users will be able to explore their Metro Parks from the comfort of their own homes.

Through proper marketing, this new communication and promotion tool can encourage customers to collect information and learn more about their regional park system before they actually get out and visit the various parks, use its many services and participate in its diverse programs. Ultimately, as additional regional park systems are added to the Time Warner network or similar networks, visitors will be able to use this new capability to plan visits to parks throughout the country. Often, under utilization of park areas and programs can be attributed to a lack of information. The World Wide Web and the Internet offer another vehicle to communicate with the public. Time Warner's Road Runner service provides Metro Parks free and easy access to this exciting new world of information services.

In 1994, Metro Parks and Enterprise Information Services, Inc. (EIS) of Akron, Ohio teamed up to develop a new interactive computer exhibit for use in the park district's visitors center. EIS is a regional media integration company providing technical publishing, digital imaging and multimedia services.

The "Explore Your Metro Parks" interactive exhibit features a touch screen monitor that encourages the user to tour the Metro Parks, its facilities and services. This program includes photographic images and high-resolution graphics that profile each of the 13 parks and provide information concerning the many programs and visitor services . The user can choose, at the touch of the finger, a number of options related to each park location to learn more about specific hiking trails, summer and winter activities, facilities, and unique features. The exhibit is powered by an Apple MacIntosh and includes more than 125 pages of information combined with 330 colorful photographic scenes from the parks and many digitally enhanced color graphics. This same exhibit has since been duplicated for use in a new mobile information center that the Metro Parks takes on the road to community events and festivals around the county.

Time Warner and the World Wide Web

In 1995, Time Warner Cable Services decided to develop and launch a new service line for its cable subscribers. Its new on-line, high-speed computer service is offered through the company's already existing cable system. The Greater Akron and Canton area of Ohio was chosen as the locale to debut this new service providing local computer users with a full-service content network at speeds 100 times faster than today's standard telephone-computer modems. Instead of a computer modem hooked up to a local telephone line, Time Warner's customers would be provided with a high-speed cable/computer modem that links their personal computer to Time Warner's fiber optic/coaxial network.

There are several on-line computer services available today, however, those services have two drawbacks as Time Warner saw it: 1) there is no local content and 2) the speed for accessing graphics and other multimedia applications is agonizingly slow. Road Runner was created to overcome both of these drawbacks. Road Runner provides an integration of new technology with local content as well as the use of existing services such as Time Warner's Pathfinder, the rest of the World Wide Web, the Internet, and other commercial services.

Road Runner's original local content distinguishes it from all other on-line services. With the goal of providing the area with its own electronic community, Road Runner is similar to a LAN (Local Area Network) service for Akron and Canton. Local content sites for the service were created through partnerships between Time Warner Cable and more than two dozen local civic and nonprofit institutions. Time Warner subcontracted with a number of local computer programmers to construct entertaining and useful sites that feature some of the best in informational assets of the region. The costs of developing these local sites were underwritten by Time Warner which also provided each local content provider a free hook up to the system so they could continually update and keep their information fresh.

Enterprise Information Services (EIS) was chosen to help develop the local content sites. Local sites include public schools, art museums, zoos, historical societies, hospitals, local and state universities, and municipal and county governments. In discussions with Time Warner, EIS demonstrated the interactive program it had previously developed for the Metro Parks visitor center. Time Warner immediately added the Metro Parks to its list of local information sites.

The already-developed program only needed to be converted to the Road Runner format and included many of the qualities Time Warner was seeking in local content, design, color graphics, and photo images. Time Warner Cable is the nation's second largest cable television operator. It currently serves, with affiliated companies, 11.8 million customers in 37 states. Time Warner serves more than 240,000 customers in the Greater Akron, Greater Canton, Youngstown, Salem, and Lodi areas. The debut of the new Road Runner service in the Greater Akron and Canton area was based on the extensive investment made by the company in upgrading its local system with more than 3,000 miles of fiber optic/coaxial cable in Northeast Ohio.

Check Us Out

Check out the Metro Parks at: www. neo.lrun.com/Metro Parks or find us on the World Wide Web by searching "Metro Parks." Our e-mail address is: ametropa @neo.lrun.com.

Check out Time Warner's Road Runner home page at: www.rdrun.com. For more information about Enterprise Information Services, check them out on the Internet at: www.eis.net.com Their e-mail address is: eis-staff@eisnet~com.

RELATED ARTICLE: About Akron's Regional Park System

Metro Parks, Serving Summit County is a 75-year-old special district serving the more than 500,000 residents of the Akron metropolitan area of northeast Ohio. This 6,700acre regional park system has 11 developed parks, a 23-mile Bike and Hike Trail, two swimming areas, a visitors center, special nature study area, arboretum and several large conservation areas.

Metro Parks are conveniently located throughout the county so that a park facility is within a 15-minute drive of most county residents. These large, natural areas host more than two million visits per year. Each park has inviting scenic picnic areas, spacious playfields and marked hiking trails. Each year, Metro Parks naturalists conduct a full calendar of guided walks, nature classes and speaking engagements for school classes and community groups. Metro Parks rangers actively patrol all park areas to ensure the protection of the natural resources.

Special facilities include the F. A. Seiberling Naturealm (Nature Realm), a 100-acre special-use area, set aside for the study and enjoyment of nature. The Naturealm features an arboretum collection of more than 300 species of shrubs and trees including a flowering crabapple collection, rock and herb garden and vine arbor. The Naturealm's innovative, underground Visitors Center opened in 1990 and was created to blend with, rather than intrude on, its environment. Visitors will find 4,000 square feet of creatively designed and executed exhibits within additional room set aside for naturalist programming.

Metro Parks, Serving Summit County is organized under Ohio law as a separate metropolitan park district which is not part of any local, county, state or federal level of government. Metro Parks are governed by a three-member, unpaid Board of Park Commissioners appointed by the Summit County Probate Judge. A small real estate tax levy, which voters periodically are asked to approve, provides the funds for the Metro Parks. The cost to the average Summit County homeowner is approximately five cents a day.