
Transforming How We Collect and Visualize Information about Urban Accessibility - projectsidewalk
http://projectsidewalk.io
======
DoreenMichele
I have lived without a car for like a decade. It is shocking how much the
world is designed for cars. This winds up being a de facto "screw you" to
everyone else, including people reliant on public transit. Many people reliant
on public transit are either poor or handicapped (thus can't drive) or both.

I wish this project well. Glad to see it on the front page.

~~~
ImaCake
As a white middle class male and native english speaker in a western country,
deciding to ride my bike to work or the shops was the first time I ever felt
like I was in a minority group.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Makes me think of this piece:

[https://alittlemoresauce.com/2014/08/20/what-my-bike-has-
tau...](https://alittlemoresauce.com/2014/08/20/what-my-bike-has-taught-me-
about-white-privilege/)

(Of course some folks object to that piece: [http://grist.org/cities/please-
people-stop-using-bikes-to-wh...](http://grist.org/cities/please-people-stop-
using-bikes-to-whitesplain-privilege/))

------
rdtsc
Nicely done. This is the kinda of stuff I like to see machine learning and
mapping used for.

I have a friend who is in the wheelchair and walking around DC with them it's
really apparent how some of the places are just impossible access, or if it is
possible it's unnecessarily annoying. Some of the things are fixable such as
potholes some are harder, such as the ramp is missing. Some places we just had
to give up and change plans because we get to where we were going.

Project results page are throwing a proxy error currently probably because of
the HN traffic. In the meantime here is the GH page:

[https://github.com/ProjectSidewalk](https://github.com/ProjectSidewalk)

------
dhekir
The idea is commendable, however I find it unfortunate that they did not
choose to use already existing data on OpenStreetMap (perhaps because it's a
competitor to Google Maps?), for instance reusing the weelchair routing
efforts started in 2010:
[http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Wheelchair_routing](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Wheelchair_routing)

OpenStreetMap already has metadata that could not only help with tracing
weelchair paths (pedestrian crossings have a "curb" field designed especially
for weelchair accessible; POIs such as shops and buildings have a weelchair-
accessible boolean; etc.), but also indicate which sidewalks contain, for
instance, tactile pavings for the blind, besides lots of other useful
metadata.

Also, there is a lot of effort already invested in OpenStreetMap, and more
contributors are always welcome. The overall utility of the maps should help
ensure the data will remain used by the community at large, and hopefully up-
to-date in the long term.

~~~
jonfroehlich
Thanks for your comment. In short, we agree. We have recently been working
with OpenSidewalks
([https://www.opensidewalks.com/](https://www.opensidewalks.com/)) on figuring
out the best way to integrate our data into OSM. We have also been
communicating with Wheelmap.org, which is complementary to our efforts as it
focuses on POIs rather than sidewalks/streets.

Our progress is slower than we'd like but we are purely an academic project
and our team is comprised solely of students and faculty. We are quite
resource constrained and so must manage our goals carefully. Plus, we are OSM
neophytes and so we are slowly learning about the community and possibilities.

Oh, and though Google provided some initial funding for our project--via a
Google Faculty Research Award--they have never, at any point, restricted what
we do or aim to do or how we do it.

Thanks again for your feedback. I hope that in 2018 we can focus more of our
efforts on OSM integration. If you're connected to that community, would love
additional pointers. Thanks.

-Jon Froehlich (PI on Project Sidewalk)

------
stephen123
Haha a site about accessibility doesn't support mobile. All I see is a nice
sorry~not~for~you page.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's a site about accessibility in physical world, not about responsive web
design.

~~~
jsilence
Would still be nice if it could be used on the go via mobile phone...

~~~
jonfroehlich
We completely agree. This has been on our TODO list since Sept 2016:
[https://github.com/ProjectSidewalk/SidewalkWebpage/issues/28...](https://github.com/ProjectSidewalk/SidewalkWebpage/issues/282).
We are working on it!

Note that we are a small, academic project with no professional developers.
So, unfortunately, some TODOs take longer than we expect or want.

Thanks for the comment and for the nudge to work even hard on this!

------
hammeiam
Funded by Google, uses MapBox

~~~
ericand
I like the idea that universities can take money from corporations and not
feel as though they have to bend their work to support their funder's business
models. Kudos to Google and the University of Maryland here.

~~~
peatmoss
I suppose the level of influence depends on the institution and the degree of
corporate support. I’ve been involved in research where PIs were fiercely
emphatic about their unwillingness to share findings to funders prior to
publication.

That said, this isn’t classic research / journal pub work, and so presumably
Google could decide they didn’t like the direction and yank funding or
threaten to yank funding.

~~~
jonfroehlich
To be clear, the funding here is via a Google Faculty Research Award, which is
a one-time payment largely focused on supporting one grad student for one
year.

[https://research.google.com/research-
outreach.html#/research...](https://research.google.com/research-
outreach.html#/research-outreach/faculty-engagement/faculty-research-awards)

Google is typically fairly hands off with these awards and we have not, at
anytime, felt pressure to pursue a certain direction because of Google funding
(though of course, there may be implicit biases that we are unaware of). Most
of our funding is via the NSF.

Project Sidewalk _is_ quite dependent on Google Streetview and its API. I
don't believe there is a good alternative out there currently (Mapillary is a
possibility; Cyclomedia is another but they work via private contracts, which
would likely be prohibitively expensive for us). So, if Google decides to end
Streetview or significantly change its API, then it will dramatically impact
Project Sidewalk's viability. Our hope is that Streetview only becomes more
robust and updated more frequently, which will make it an even more valuable
"urban science" dataset.

------
voltagex_
What about WheelMap?

~~~
jonfroehlich
Definitely. We've been in contact with them as well, and we hope something
comes of it. As I mentioned above, WheelMap focuses on POIs but not _how_ to
get to those POIs, so our work is complementary.

