A presentation about accessibility and how we're using open data and social media to raise awareness of problems and visualize/map accessibility in and around Philadelphia

1. Presentation by James Tyack, May 2014
www.tyack.net
Using open data and social media to
improve accessibility in Philadelphia

2. What is accessibility?
“The degree to which a product, device,
service, or environment is available to as
many people as possible” (Wikipedia)

3. Problem...

4. New business on 10th St - inaccessible, opened
last week Neighbor is accessible

5. Another new business - Washington Sq
They claim to be ‘wheelchair accessible’
Entrance and
coffee bar this
level
Restroom,
seating and
more on this
level, with no
ramp
(back kitchen
entrance can
provide access to
this level, but no
information
provided)

6. 3rd and Market
unfriendly
construction

7. Elevator at 8th Street Station was out of service for 2 months
earlier this year; no information provided at elevator

8. Web page explaining what
to do if elevator out http://www3.
septa.org/elevators/

9. 1.8 miles
1.3 miles
What this looks like on
SEPTA map

10. What are we
doing about it?
“People always come up to me, and
say ‘What you’re talking about is
so inspirational and so great,’ and
I say ‘That’s awesome, thank you.
So what are you going to do about
it?’
Austin Seraphin
http://technical.ly/philly/2014/05/19/accessibility-tech-
aging-disability/

11. Millions of people are
locked out...
…from jobs, places,
experiences,
education

12. We can empower people.
Level the playing field!

14. Early prototype was revealing...
Bad weekend for
accessibility - all of
center city
inaccessible!

15. We Tweeted about 8th Street...

16. NBC News reported...
Elevator cleaned and fixed next day :)
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.
com/news/local/Elevating-
Accessibility-on-Mass-Transit-
250853021.html

17. Things have improved! Status
today on latest version of
http://www.unlockphilly.com

18. We now show length of
outage (and record history)

19. Businesses listed as ‘wheelchair
accessible’ on Yelp are mapped
around stations

20. Twitter is important to us for raising
awareness of issues; many people
and groups are watching and
respond quickly

21. Stations outage tracking
D3 Calendar heatmap
Proposed new feature once
we’ve built up history

22. Future ideas
● Trip planning
● Accessible maps for blind people
● Better crowdsourcing of information (Yelp not always
accurate)
● Descriptions / videos / pictures of accessible
stations/buinesses
● Help and advice page for businesses
● Your ideas! (send us feedback)

23. Get involved!
● Build stuff with accessibility in mind!
● Go to hack4access coming up (end of May)
● Join Philly Accessibility Forum - monthly meetups
● Help on this project
● Visit Comcast’s Accessibilty Lab - Tom Wlodkowski is VP
● Raise awareness of accessibility with friends and co-workers.
● Get social! Tweet and leave reviews.