Taskar Center for Accessible Technology

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Taskar Center for Accessible Technology

The Taskar Center Develops, Translates and Deploys technology to increase quality of life for indivi

The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT), housed by the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at The University of Washington, develops, translates and deploys open source universally accessible technologies, with a focus on benefiting populations with motor limitations or speech impairment.

10/20/2026

Can all students reach school within a 10-minute walk or roll?
TCAT (Taskar Center for Accessible Technology) is working with community contributors to map pedestrian conditions around Seattle's 104 public schools.

Catholic Youth Music contributors (St. James Cathedral, Seattle) documented sidewalks, curbs, and crossings around John Stanford International School.
Across OTP Seattle, contributors completed 218 quests and added 42 notes.

These observations add shared knowledge that can help communities understand where route conditions may create barriers.

Sign up for TCAT updates: https://tinyurl.com/TCATSignUp
Sign up to run your own OpenSidewalks AVIV ScoutRoute Safe Routes to School campaign:
OpenSidewalks Team Challenge: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSegHgNLIfgaJ3DHHeCUXa67Nhxi8PG1UB190tZxFGWgioGBeg/viewform

10/16/2026

On Oct. 15, TCAT joined elected officials for a Walk-n-Talk along SR 99/Aurora.

Corridors that bridge multiple jurisdictions have been too often forgotten as no-man’s land. But what if that’s an important corridor that conveys our most vulnerable pedestrians?

It’s impressive and important when state (WSDOT) along with a number of neighboring jurisdictions (Edmonds, Lynnwood, Snohomish County) can get together to make a plan, taking into account safety and accessibility for non-drivers.

In our own analysis of OS-CONNECT, we looked at the sidewalks and crossings we mapped for the state within a 100-meter strip from Edmonds to Lynnwood. This area includes 87 essential destinations, where fully 15 of them (nearly 20%) were not safe or accessible to reach from a nearby bus stop.

The walk organized by Transportation Choices Coalition and explored some of the most conflict-prone locations on the ground. Pairing sidewalk-network data with local observation can help communities identify where access breaks down and what needs a closer look.

Sign the petition to support OS-CONNECT continuity so other corridors can have their study plan accelerated: https://tinyurl.com/osconnect-continuity
Sign up for TCAT updates: https://tinyurl.com/TCATSignUp

10/15/2026

How can technology and data help communities understand pedestrian safety?

Join Dr. Anat Caspi of UW's Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, Dr. Mansoureh Jeihani, Caroline Pe**er, and Dr. Elham Shayanfar for Maryland Department of Transportation's Walktober webinar, "Using Technology and Data to Advance Pedestrian Safety." The speakers will share research and real-world agency perspectives on accessibility-focused technology, LiDAR, mapping, smart sensing, and data collection for pedestrian safety. These topics connect with TCAT's work on accessibility, mobility equity, public-interest technology, and community-centered infrastructure knowledge.

Thursday, October 22 | 10:00-11:30 a.m. PDT / 1:00-2:30 p.m. EDT | Online

Register for the event: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gdRQXdCtRxSRcFXvE_zcCA
Follow TCAT's Walktober and mobility-equity work: https://tinyurl.com/TCATSignUp

10/10/2026

We're in Anchorage this week for PacTrans 2026, sharing how better pedestrian data can lead to safer, more connected, and more accessible communities across the Pacific Northwest.

Our team is presenting three projects:
- From Community Input to Agency Action: Aviv ScoutRoute and TDEI Across the Pedestrian Data Lifecycle
- Measuring Livability from the Sidewalk Network
- iOSPointMapper: Community-Directed Mobile AI for Operational Pedestrian Data

If you're here in Anchorage, come say hello! Meet Anat Caspi, Kunal Mehta, and Himanshu Naidu from our team. We'd love to talk about how your agency, jurisdiction, or community organization could put this work to use.

10/08/2026

Walktober Day 8 | From Community Voices to Community Action

Walking advocacy isn't just about being heard. It's about giving institutions the tools to understand community needs and act.

Last Friday, TCAT joined Move Redmond's Walk & Talk, alongside 33 participants. We were impressed by the thoughtful organization and willingness of community members, advocates, planners, and decision-makers to listen and engage. But what happens after the walk?

With AVIV ScoutRoute, participants overlaid observations onto Washington's OS-CONNECT pedestrian infrastructure dataset. The resulting report documented 21 observation notes, 14 infrastructure problems, one consensus hotspot backed by 5 reports from 5 voices, 2 locations surveyed well, and 20 survey answers. These observations can become mapped infrastructure concerns and action packets for planners and elected officials.

OpenSidewalks provides the shared data language, OS-CONNECT the infrastructure baseline, and AVIV ScoutRoute the connection between community experience and action. That's why we're calling for OS-CONNECT continuity, keeping Washington's pedestrian infrastructure data current, open, and usable.

Which corridor would you like to examine next?

Follow TCAT and support this work: https://tinyurl.com/TCATSignUp

Thank you, Move Redmond, for bringing community voices and decision-makers together!

We were glad to have Sound Transit, City of Redmond, Washington -Government with us at the Walk & Talk.

10/06/2026

We’re delighted to see renewed attention being paid to the safety of the SR 99/Aurora corridor.

One reason this matters so much to us is that improving a corridor starts with understanding who can actually move through it and what they can reach.

With OS-CONNECT, Washington now has baseline pedestrian-network data that can support that kind of analysis.

For SR 99 between Edmonds and Lynnwood, we can compare the same ten-minute trip under different conditions: What happens when someone can use streets? What happens when the trip must stay on sidewalks and crossings? What happens when curb ramps and grades determine which parts of the network can be used?

Those differences tell us something important about freedom of movement for nondrivers. They also help pinpoint where continuity breaks, where access to transit and essential destinations is lost, and where a local review could lead to an actionable bike/ped improvement.

And SR 99 does not have to be the only corridor.

🍂 During Walktober, we’re inviting communities across Washington to tell us where we should look next.

Is there a corridor in your community where you want to better understand walking and rolling access? Tell us about it. We’d like to run similar comparative analyses and use the results to help create corridor bike/ped improvement action plans.

Sign up for our newsletter to follow the work and upcoming Walktober activities:
https://tinyurl.com/TCATSignUp

💬 Then leave us a comment with the corridor you think we should analyze next.

10/05/2026

Join TCAT as we hols MapTime SEA for The Haunted Map, a free Walktober workshop on Thursday, October 8, from 6:00–8:00 PM PT at UW CSE 2, Gates Center, Room G04.

This hands-on workshop uses European folklore and Halloween imagery to introduce cartography, QGIS, color theory, typography, and visual hierarchy. Participants will build a static map using spatial data, photos, text, and layout elements. No prior QGIS experience is needed. Please bring a charged laptop.

TCAT is sharing this event as part of our Walktober programming because maps help shape what communities can see, understand, and improve. Better public mapping and data visualization can support mobility equity, pedestrian access, and nondriver freedom.

Register and view preparation details:
https://www.meetup.com/maptimesea/events/316191870/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events

Stay connected with TCAT’s work on accessibility, mobility equity, and transportation data:
https://tinyurl.com/TCATSignUp

10/01/2026

🍂 WELCOME TO WALKTOBER 2026!

We're celebrating a month of walking, rolling, community participation, and better access to the places that make everyday life possible.

What makes a neighborhood accessible? Is it the presence of sidewalks, or the freedom to reach a bus stop, grocery store, school, park, or healthcare facility?

At the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology , we're working through OS-CONNECT, TDEI, and AVIV ScoutRoute to bring infrastructure data and community experience together to answer these questions.

Our first event is one we are supporting, not sponsoring, TOMORROW!

📍 Move Redmond's Marymoor Village Walk & Talk

📅 Friday, October 2

🕐 Meet at 1 PM at Marymoor Village Station. The walk begins at 1:30 PM.

Join Move Redmond with us to explore pedestrian accessibility and use AVIV ScoutRoute https://tcat.cs.washington.edu/avivscoutroute/ to contribute observations about the conditions you encounter.

We'll continue throughout October with events and corridor stories highlighting freedom of movement and opportunities to improve walking and rolling access across Washington.

We'd love you to participate!

📅 Find our Walktober calendar and upcoming events:
https://tcat.cs.washington.edu/

📬 Subscribe to our newsletter:
https://tinyurl.com/TCATSignup

💬 Have a corridor in mind that needs attention? Tell us in the comments. Your local knowledge can help identify where we should ADVOCATE planners to look next!

09/15/2026

The recording of our September 10 OS-CONNECT Advisory Board meeting is now available on YouTube.

This was a working session about what comes next for Washington’s statewide pedestrian infrastructure dataset: keeping the information accurate and useful as sidewalks, crossings, curb ramps, transit connections, and communities change.

Participants from across Washington discussed how infrastructure information is maintained today, where updates get delayed or lost, which OS-CONNECT contribution pathways could work for different organizations, and what support agencies would actually use.

The recording also includes examples from Richland and Goldendale and discussion of how OS-CONNECT can support ADA transition planning, safety plans, transit access, Safe Routes to School, comprehensive plans, infrastructure prioritization, and grant development.

Watch here: https://youtu.be/WPgwFUCeFus

Please subscribe to the Taskar Center’s YouTube channel. We’ll be posting the demonstrations and short training modules that advisory board participants requested.

OS-CONNECT is led by TCAT at UW, with Gaussian Solutions and WSDOT as project partners. The work is supported through a Washington State legislative proviso.

Alt text: Animated map showing the expansion of OS-CONNECT pedestrian-infrastructure coverage: AI predicted + human vetted, across Washington over the past year, culminating in a statewide standardized dataset of sidewalks and crossings.

09/10/2026

Washington has reached a national milestone: it is the first state to have its statewide pedestrian infrastructure collected in a single, consistent, standardized data schema.

With funding from the Washington State Legislature’s proviso, OS-CONNECT has completed an initial statewide dataset of sidewalks and crossings using the OpenSidewalks schema. The work was completed by the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology in partnership with Gaussian Solutions.

This animation shows the growth of statewide coverage: AI-predicted AND human vetted data, over the past year.

Now we’re turning to the next challenge: keeping the data current as sidewalks, crossings, curb ramps, and other pedestrian infrastructure change.

The OS-CONNECT Advisory Board meets virtually today, September 10, from 1:30–3:00 PM Pacific. We’ll demonstrate ways agencies can review, correct, and contribute updates, hear from jurisdictions that have tested some of these approaches, and discuss what would work in real local-agency workflows.

There is still time to register to receive updates and join today’s meeting:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfwtFTd01KPpvqoF2yBMDkXwwUm5wssEqAbgX9BtbYkMKBsQA/viewform

No prior OS-CONNECT experience is required.

Address

185 Stevens Way
Seattle, WA
98195

Website

http://tcat.cs.washington.edu/

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