Inside Vancouver

Rick Hansen 2.0: New app for ranking wheelchair access

by Remy Scalza in Town on May 21, 2012

Wondering how the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, the Blue Water Cafe or hundreds of other venues around Vancouver stack up in terms of wheelchair access and accessibility?

There’s an app for that.

Planat, a new app from the Rick Hansen Foundation, lets users rank and review restaurants, hotels, shops and other venues in terms of accessibility. Since its launch in October, Planat has been used by thousands of people in 16 countries to upload info about everything from wheelchair access ramps to quality of customer service.

Hansen is returning to Vancouver on May 22 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his original Man in Motion Tour, when he traversed the globe in a wheelchair. Since that time, accessibility for people with spinal injuries, as well as other mobility impairments, has changed dramatically. Planat shows how far we’ve come – and how far we still have to go.

So how does the app work and who gets top marks in the city?

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Rick Hansen 2.0: New app for ranking wheelchair access

New, Free App for Finding Family Activities in Vancouver: OnTheGoKids

by Dana Lynch in Insider on April 16, 2012

About a week ago, during Afternoon Tea at VanDusen Botanical Garden’s Truffles Cafe, I met Annemarie Tempelman-Kluit: Vancouverite, mom, and the founder of yoyomama, a parent- and kid-related resource for families across the Lower Mainland. As a busy, on-the-go parent, Annemarie knew first-hand how frustrating it can be to find things to do with the kids on any given day (I feel her pain!), so she and yoyomamma created “an app for that:” OnTheGoKids, a free iPhone app for finding kid and family activities in Vancouver.

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New, Free App for Finding Family Activities in Vancouver: OnTheGoKids

Free Ocean Wise iPhone App Helps You Support Sustainable Seafood

by Dana Lynch in Food & Drink on January 22, 2012

By now, most Vancouverites know about Ocean Wise, the non-profit organization founded by the Vancouver Aquarium to support and promote sustainable seafood. Most of Vancouver’s top seafood restaurants carry the Ocean Wise seal of approval next to their sustainable seafood menu items, and there are now Ocean Wise restaurants participating in the program across Canada.

To help you find restaurants and markets that use Ocean Wise sustainable seafood, there’s now a free Ocean Wise iPhone App that covers over 3,000 Ocean Wise restaurants, markets and supplier venues from coast to coast, as well as a comprehensive list of ocean-friendly seafood options.

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Free Ocean Wise iPhone App Helps You Support Sustainable Seafood

New, Free App for Vancouver Parks

by Dana Lynch in Outside on January 9, 2012

Almost two years ago, Metro Vancouver debuted their iParks Explorer App, a mobile guide to Metro Vancouver’s 22 regional parks. At the time, many wondered why there wasn’t a similar app for City of Vancouver Parks. Now there is. Last month, the Vancouver Park Board unveiled their new, free app for iPhone, iPad and iTouch, the Vancouver Parks App.

The new Vancouver Parks app features all of Vancouver’s 200+ city parks, providing information on each park’s amenities and facilities as well as park photos, plus directions for reaching the parks closest to your current location. Users can also search for Vancouver parks by map or by alphabetical order and create lists of personal favourites.

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New, Free App for Vancouver Parks

Find Free Parking in Vancouver with the Free Park ‘in’ Spot App

by Dana Lynch in Insider on September 4, 2011

Free Vancouver Park 'in' Spot App

Anyone who has ever driven in Vancouver knows that finding parking—even pay parking, especially downtown—can be difficult. Of course, the best way to deal with limited parking is to bike or take public transit, but sometimes you just need to drive.

Vancouver developers at A Step Above Apps launched a free app for iPhone, iTouch, and iPad in April 2011 that is designed to help Vancouver drivers find parking. Called the Park ‘in’ Spot App, the app has a built-in GPS function that pinpoints your location and then shows you the locations of all nearby parking, including free street parking spaces and the rates for nearby public lots and parking meters.

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Find Free Parking in Vancouver with the Free Park ‘in’ Spot App