Inspiration
Elevators break at stations; shops and restaurants often don't have accessible entrances or restrooms. This affects thousands of people with disabilities, parents with strollers and older adults. This project started at a Transit Hackathon with an aim to map station and venue accessibility as well as elevator outages. The project has grown and developed since the hackathon and helps people locate accessible stations and friendly businesses. It also highlights problems so they can be addressed.
How it works
We use feeds from local transit companies and Yelp to get information about accessibility and map it in real time. We also store history of the time/frequency of elevator outages and visualize the data using D3 so patterns can be identified at stations and tweeted if there are extended problems.
Challenges I ran into
Difficult to get users involved at first, but through persistence and outreach, we have a great team of community members that are excited and interested in the project, helping it develop and grow.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Fixing broken elevators after noticing patterns on the app and tweeting about them. Raising the profile of accessibility issues in Philadelphia. Getting nominated for a Philly Geek Award 2014. Nomination for Civic Hacker of the Year. Getting invited to speak to 3rd Grade class about accessibility and civic hacking. Fun!
What I learned
Hard work and persistence can bring positive change in the community.
What's next for unlockphilly
More development work to find accessibility issues and patterns. Learn more on this blog post:- http://www.tyack.net/2014/12/25/civic-hacking-with-impact-mapping-and-crowdsourcing-accessibility-in-philadelphia/
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