What It Would Take to Map Every Sidewalk In Your State

Washington State is on the brink of completing America’s first comprehensive, statewide inventory of every single sidewalk and pedestrian path within its borders — and along with it, a collection of tools that make it easy for transportation professionals and every day travelers to see exactly where those paths fall short. 

But why did it take any American state so long to create something like this, even in an era of Google Maps and ubiquitous AI? And what will it take to bring it to communities across the country in a way that lasts — and allows the data to keep getting better? 

Today on The Brake, we chat with Dr. Anat Caspi about the resource she’s calling OS Connect — short for Open Sidewalks — and the upcoming conference to explore the challenges and opportunities of leveraging big data for big change in the pedestrian realm. And along the way, we explore how her late daughter, Aviv, helped inspire her work, the tool named in her honor, and the importance of “anti-ableist AI” and bringing the human perspective to technology. 

For a full transcript of this podcast (with some AI typos), click here.