UrbanAccess'22 Workshop at ASSETS'22

Register now! Accepted authors or others with permission to attend can register for our workshop on CVENT here. See the Registration Section below for more information.

Welcome 👋,

This is the webpage for our workshop entitled "The Future of Urban Accessibility for People with Disabilities: Data Collection, Analytics, Policy, and Tools", which will be held virtually via Zoom on Mon, Oct 17th as part of the ASSETS'22 conference. You can read more about all five of the accepted ASSETS'22 workshops here.

With this workshop, our goal is to bring together leading experts in human mobility, urban design, disability, and accessible computing to discuss pressing urban access challenges across the world and brainstorm solutions. We invite contributions from practitioners, transit officials, disability advocates, and researchers.

See our Call for Participation below. Have a question? Please email us at urbanaccess2022@cs.uw.edu.

On behalf of all UrbanAccess'22 organizers,

Jon E. Froehlich, Computer Science, University of Washington
Yochai Eisenberg, Disability & Human Development, University of Illinois, Chicago
Maryam Hosseini, Urban Systems, Rutgers/NYU
Fabio Miranda, Computer Science, University of Illinois, Chicago

Keynote Speaker

Karen Tamley

We are honored to have Karen Tamley as the UrbanAccess 2022 Keynote Speaker. Karen is the President and CEO of Access Living, a Chicago-based service and advocacy non-profit for people with disabilities.

Karen previously served three Chicago Mayors as Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities. As Commissioner, Karen advanced accessibility and disability inclusion in the areas of transportation, city infrastructure, technology, emergency planning, education, and employment and oversaw the delivery of direct services to thousands of Chicago’s disabled youth and adults.

In 2015, Karen received the Motorola Solutions Excellence in Public Service Award from the Civic Federation, which recognizes a non-elected government official for having an extraordinary impact on the quality of state and local government services in Illinois. In 2016, President Obama appointed Karen to serve on the United States Access Board, which develops national accessibility guidelines and standards, and she was elected as Chair in 2019. Most recently, Karen was appointed to the Obama Foundation Inclusion Council in 2020, and she served as a member of the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition team.

Karen is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Kevin Irvine, and their teenage daughter. All three have disabilities themselves and are actively involved in disability advocacy locally and nationally.

Workshop Schedule

Below, our exciting schedule for Mon, Oct 17th. Our goal is to maximize interactivity and discussion together and to help build connections and forge collaborations. The workshop is roughly six hours and includes over three hours dedicated to breakout sessions and full group discussions (along with ~1 hr for breaks).

The workshop will take place virtually on Mon, Oct 17th at 7AM-1PM Pacific (GMT-7) / 4PM-10PM CEST (GMT+2) via Zoom. Scheduling a synchronous international workshop across timezones is challenging. We selected the best time that maximizes everyone’s availability (based on Google Form responses).

Here's the workshop timing across selected timezones:

Mon, Oct 17th 7AM-1PM PDT (GMT-7)
Mon, Oct 17th 10AM-4PM EDT (GMT-3)
Mon, Oct 17th 4PM-10PM CEST (GMT+2)
Tues, Oct 18th 1AM-7AM AED (GMT+11)

Here's the full schedule with 00:00 marking the beginning of the workshop:

Time	Description	Type
00:00-00:05	Opening remarks 👋 5 mins Starts at 07:00 PDT \| 10:00 EDT \| 16:00 CEST \| 01:00 AED	Talk
00:05-00:25	Ice breaker 🧊 20 mins	Interactive
00:25-00:45	1st breakout discussions 💬 20 mins	Breakout
00:45-01:00	Full group shareout + synthesis 15 mins	Interactive
01:00-01:30	Keynote speaker: Karen Tamley 📢 20 min talk + 10 min Q/A Starts at 08:00 PDT \| 11:00 EDT \| 17:00 CEST \| 02:00 AED	Talk + Q/A
01:30-01:40	1st break ☕ 10 mins	Break
01:40-02:25	1st talk session: Policy, Outreach, & Engagement 🎤 45 mins Sidewalks Are Our Highways Pedestrian Network Connectivity and Transit Frequency Are Top Priorities for Nondrivers Anna Zivarts, Disability Mobility Initiative, Disability Rights WA "Universal Access": A Right Denied To Wheelchair User Beneficiaries of South Africa’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) Subsidized Housing Desire Chiwandire, Disability & Human Development, UIC Plow the Sidewalks: Getting Municipal Sidewalk Snow Clearance in Chicago Michael Podgers, Better Streets Chicago Laura Saltzman, Access Living Alex Nelson, Plow the Sidewalks Initiative A Narrative Review Of Select Built Environment Policies, Design Standards, and Their Role In Promoting Equitable Mobility Laurel Currann, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University A Pilot Study of Sidewalk Equity in Seattle Using Crowdsourced Sidewalk Assessment Data Chu Li, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Lisa Orii, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Michael Saugstad, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Stephen J. Mooney, Epidemiology, UW Yochai Eisenberg, Disability & Human Development, UIC Delphine Labbé, Disability & Human Development, UIC Joy Hammel, Disability & Human Development, UIC Jon E. Froehlich, Allen School of Computer Science, UW	Talk
02:25-02:55	2nd breakout discussions 💬 30 mins	Breakout
02:55-03:10	Full group shareout + synthesis 15 mins Starts at 09:55 PDT \| 12:55 EDT \| 18:55 CEST \| 03:55 AED	Interactive
03:10-03:45	2nd talk session: Data Acquisition & Validation 🎤 35 mins Towards Semi-automatic Detection and Localization of Indoor Accessibility Issues using Mobile Depth Scanning and Computer Vision Xia Su, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Kaiming Cheng, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Han Zhang, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Jaewook Lee, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Yueqian Zhang, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Jon E. Froehlich, Allen School of Computer Science, UW Determining Accessible Sidewalk Width by Extracting Obstacle Information from Point Clouds Cláudia Fonseca Pinhão, Urban Innovation, City of Amsterdam Chris Eijgenstein, Urban Innovation, City of Amsterdam Iva Gornishka, Urban Innovation, City of Amsterdam Shayla Jansen, Urban Innovation, City of Amsterdam Diederik Roijers, Urban Innovation, City of Amsterdam Daan Bloembergen, Urban Innovation, City of Amsterdam Crowdsourcing and Sidewalk Data: A Preliminary Study on the Trustworthiness of OpenStreetMap Data in the US Kazi Shahrukh Omar, Computer Science, UIC Gustavo Moreira, Computer Science, UIC Daniel Hodczak, Computer Science, UIC Maryam Hosseini, Urban Systems, Rutgers/NYU Fabio Miranda, Computer Science, UIC Towards Open, Shared Accessibility Pedestrian Path Networks Data From Multiple Open Data Sources Yuxiang Zhang, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, UW Nicholas J. Bolten, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, UW Sachin Mehta, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, UW Anat Caspi, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, UW	Talk
03:45-04:25	Longer break 🍕🍔🍜 40 mins Starts at 10:45 PDT \| 13:45 EDT \| 19:45 CEST \| 04:45 AED	Break
04:25-05:00	3rd talk session: Mobility Perceptions & Behavior 🎤 35 mins Engaging with Situated Knowledges of Urban Accessibility Sunil Rodger, Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Germany The Impact of the Built Environment on Early Power Mobility Access Mia E. Hoffmana, Mechanical Engineering, UW Katherine M. Steele, Mechanical Engineering, UW Kyle N. Winfreec, Informatics, Computing, & Cyber Systems, NAU Heather A. Feldner, Rehabilitation Medicine, UW Investigating User Risk Attitudes in Navigation Systems to Support People with Mobility Impairments Sadia Azmin Anisha, Information Technology, Monash University Malaysia Reuben Kirkham, Human-Centred Computing, Monash University Where are the Mobility Aids? An Analysis From Urban Segmentation Datasets Amelia Lee Doğan, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT Anat Caspi, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, UW	Talk
05:00-05:30	3rd breakout discussions 💬 30 mins Starts at 12:00 PDT \| 15:00 EDT \| 21:00 CEST \| 06:00 AED	Breakout
05:30-05:55	Full group shareout + final synthesis 25 mins	Interactive
05:55-06:00	Closing thoughts 👋 5 mins Starts at 12:55 PDT \| 15:55 EDT \| 21:55 CEST \| 06:55 AED	Interactive

Don't forget to register to attend here!

Accepted Papers

Congratulations to all accepted authors! We look forward to your presentations.

Talk Session 1: Policy, Outreach, & Engagement

Sidewalks Are Our Highways: Pedestrian Network Connectivity and Transit Frequency Are Top Priorities for Nondrivers

Anna Zivarts, Disability Mobility Initiative, Disability Rights Washington

"Universal Access": A right denied to wheelchair user beneficiaries of South Africa’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) subsidized housing

Desire Chiwandire, Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago

Plow the Sidewalks: Getting Municipal Sidewalk Snow Clearance in Chicago

Michael Podgers, Better Streets Chicago
Laura Saltzman, Access Living
Alex Nelson, Plow the Sidewalks Initiative

A Narrative Review of Select Built Environment Policies, Design Standards, and Their Role in Promoting Equitable Mobility

Laurel Currann, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University

A Pilot Study of Sidewalk Equity in Seattle Using Crowdsourced Sidewalk Assessment Data

Chu Li, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Lisa Orii, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Michael Saugstad, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Stephen J. Mooney, Epidemiology, University of Washington
Yochai Eisenberg, Disability and Human Development Department, University of Illinois at Chicago
Delphine Labbé, Disability and Human Development Department, University of Illinois at Chicago
Joy Hammel, Disability and Human Development Department, University of Illinois at Chicago
Jon E. Froehlich, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington

Talk Session 2: Data Acquisition and Validation

Towards Semi-automatic Detection and Localization of Indoor Accessibility Issues using Mobile Depth Scanning and Computer Vision

Xia Su, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Kaiming Cheng, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Han Zhang, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Jaewook Lee, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Yueqian Zhang, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington
Jon E. Froehlich, Allen School of Computer Science, University of Washington

Determining Accessible Sidewalk Width by Extracting Obstacle Information from Point Clouds

Cláudia Fonseca Pinhão, Urban Innovation and R&D, City of Amsterdam
Chris Eijgenstein, Urban Innovation and R&D, City of Amsterdam
Iva Gornishka, Urban Innovation and R&D, City of Amsterdam
Shayla Jansen, Urban Innovation and R&D, City of Amsterdam
Diederik Roijers, Urban Innovation and R&D, City of Amsterdam
Daan Bloembergen, Urban Innovation and R&D, City of Amsterdam

Crowdsourcing and Sidewalk Data: A Preliminary Study on the Trustworthiness of OpenStreetMap Data in the US

Kazi Shahrukh Omar, Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
Gustavo Moreira, Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
Daniel Hodczak, Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
Maryam Hosseini, Urban Systems, Rutgers/NYU
Fabio Miranda, Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago

Towards Open, Shared Accessibility Pedestrian Path Networks Data From Multiple Open Data Sources

Yuxiang Zhang, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, University of Washington
Nicholas J. Bolten, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, University of Washington
Sachin Mehta, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, University of Washington
Anat Caspi, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, University of Washington

Talk Session 3: Mobility Perceptions & Behavior

Engaging With Situated Knowledges of Urban Accessibility

Sunil Rodger, Zentrum Klinische Studien, Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Germany

The Impact of the Built Environment on Early Power Mobility Access

Mia E. Hoffman, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington
Katherine M. Steele, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington
Kyle N. Winfreec, School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University
Heather A. Feldner, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington

Investigating User Risk Attitudes in Navigation Systems to Support People with Mobility Impairments

Sadia Azmin Anisha, School of Information Technology, Monash University Malaysia
Reuben Kirkham, Department of Human-Centred Computing, Monash University

Where Are the Mobility Aids? An Analysis From Urban Segmentation Datasets

Amelia Lee Doğan, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
Anat Caspi, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, University of Washington

Call for Participation

We welcome your contributions!

There is widespread lack of accessibility in built environments, from roads and housing to public building and spaces. Such inaccessible urban infrastructure not only contributes to and further reinforces systemic exclusion of people with disabilities but also impacts public health, physical activity, and quality of life for all. To improve the design of our cities and to enable new accessibility-infused analytic tools and interactive maps, we need new data collection techniques, data standards, policies, and planning tools focused on the quality and accessibility of pathways, transit ecosystems, and buildings.

The goal of our “The Future of Urban Accessibility” workshop is to bring together a community of scholars and practitioners across disciplines, disability identities, cultures, and geographies to discuss the state of urban accessibility and the role of interactive technologies therein.

We invite short papers (broadly construed), including experience reports, position papers, vision pieces, demonstrations, pictorials, or research summaries up to approximately 2,000 words on this topic. For the word count, you can exclude figures, tables, captions, and the reference list. As we aim for a broad representation of viewpoints, disciplines, and work practices, please choose a format that you feel best conveys your work. Please reach out to urbanaccess2022@cs.uw.edu if you have a question.

Submitted artifacts should not be anonymized and, in addition to their primary content, should include a bio of each author and rationale for attending the workshop. Please alt-text your images. Artifacts will be reviewed and selected by the co-organizers to balance topics, geographies, and communities of focus. Accepted authors will be required to register and virtually attend the workshop via Zoom on Mon, Oct 17th

Please submit your papers/artifacts here by Mon, Sept 12 at 11:59PM AoE. We are using Microsoft's Conference Management Toolkit to handle submissions.

Our overarching goal is to identify open challenges, share current work across disciplines, and spur new collaborations. As a secondary goal, we aim to synthesize and publish our discussions together in a jointly authored report perhaps to the SIGACCESS Newsletter or beyond.

Please join us. We welcome your contributions! Email questions to: urbanaccess2022@cs.uw.edu.

Ten Questions

“Space is a place of intersecting struggles/oppression/opportunities. How we move or not move through it… shapes everything we do and big parts of who we are.” ⁠–Makani Themba

How do we design equitable, accessible cities? What is the role of interactive technology in supporting such diverse tasks as urban planning, accessibility-aware urban navigation, and government accountability? How can we ensure the participation and empowerment of people with disabilities not just in designing accessible cities but also in the ecosystem of interactive tools from accessible transit and restaurant recommendation apps to maps of urban access.

Below, we pose ten questions about the “future of urban accessibility” to drive discussion and provide example areas of interest for our workshop. The questions are intended to be a start, not an end. Throughout, we confront the very definition of “urban accessibility”: this is a function not just of the design of the built environment and transportation infrastructure but also our sensory, physical, and cognitive abilities.

See our workshop proposal for expanded details/context around each question.

How do we ensure diverse, empowered multi-stakeholder perspectives?
What data to collect and how to format it?
Who does the data collection?
How is the data collected, validated, and maintained?
What is the role of AI in assessing urban accessibility?
What is the role of data collection and transparency tools in enforcing policy and ensuring government accountability?
How can we create personalizable, interactive models of urban accessibility?
What are the differences in urban accessibility needs across the globe?
How do climate justice and disability justice intersect in cities?
How can we create effectively synthesized reports and visualizations to support new policy and urban planning?

Timeline

Important dates for the workshop

Fri, Jul 22, 2022: Website launch and CFP published
~~Thu, Sep 1, Sep 8~~ Mon, Sep 12, 2022 (11:59PM AoE): Workshop submission deadline (submission link)
~~Fri, Sep 16, 2022~~ Thu, Sep 22, 2022: Acceptance notifications out. You can register here.
~~Wed, Sep 28, 2022~~ Mon, Oct 3, 2022: Workshop camera ready deadline
Mon, Oct 10, 2022: Accepted workshop content posted
Mon, Oct 17, 2022: Virtual workshop via Zoom

Submitting

To submit, the lead author should create an account on Microsoft CMT. Then, you can create a new submission here. On that page, click the "Create new submission" link.

The submission page will ask for the title, abstract, authors, and then a field for you to upload the PDF (one per submission). When adding an author, it will first ask for their email address—if the author is not found in the CMT system, you just need to manually add their name and affiliation (no need to ask them to create a CMT account).

Registration

You must register to attend UrbanAccess 2022. You can register here.

Our workshop is part of the ASSETS'22 conference. You do not have to register for the full conference to attend the workshop. The registration prices are set by ASSETS'22 and include accessibility services and staffing support.

ASSETS is an ACM conference. ACM stands for the the Association for Computing Machinery and is the largest scientific and educational computing society in the world. If you are not yet an ACM member, but publish at ACM venues, it often makes financial sense to become one. See ACM’s membership options here.

	ACM/SIG Member	Non-member	Student
Cost	$30	$35	$20

We also encourage you to also register for the full ASSETS'22 conference!

Lead Workshop Organizers

Jon Froehlich is a white man with brown hair wearing a purple Makeability Lab t-shirt and a gray sports coat

Jon E. Froehlich

Associate Professor
Computer Science
University of Washington

Yochai Eisenberg

Assistant Professor
Disability & Human Development
University of Illinois, Chicago

Maryam Hosseini

Research Scientist
Urban Systems
Rutgers/NYU

Fabio Miranda

Assistant Professor
Computer Science
University of Illinois, Chicago

All Organizers

Given the diversity of our topic and its inherent interdisciplinarity, we have intentionally assembled a large set of co-authors/co-organizers across six countries with different disciplinary backgrounds, professions, and focus areas. Though admittedly expansive, our diverse list of co-organizers brings complementary perspectives and allows us to advertise and engage communities who are not typically part of ASSETS. Our hope is that this will further broaden and enrich the ASSETS community at large and that, perhaps, some of our workshop participants will choose to submit to the main track at ASSETS in future years. The list below is organized alphabetically.

Person	Position	Discipline	Affiliation	Country	Area of Interest
Marc Adams	Professor	Behavioral Sciences and Epidemiology	ASU	US	Interaction between walkability and interventions for physical activity
Anat Caspi	Principal Scientist	Computer Science	UW	US	Data equity in transportation through data standardization, automated collection, performance metrics and analytic tools. Co-founder of OpenSidewalks and AccessMap.io
Holger Dieterich	NGO	Activism	Sozialhelden e.V	Germany	Accessibility, inclusion, geodata, standards, disability mainstreaming. Co-founder of wheelmap.org
Heather Feldner	Professor	Rehabilitation Medicine	UW	US	Mobility rights, access and environments of use for pediatric mobility technology, geospatial mapping for children and families who use mobility tech
Jon E. Froehlich	Professor	Computer Science	UW	US	Urban accessibility data collection, analytics, and visualization. Sidewalk equity. Mobility rights. Co-founder of Project Sidewalk.
Aldo González Barrera	NGO	Urban Planning	Liga Peatonal	Mexico	Architect, urban planner, activist. Participatory design for public spaces
Claudina de Gyves	NGO	Activism/Urban Planning	Liga Peatonal	Mexico	Urban planning, mobility, pedestrian rights, citizen advocacy
Joy Hammel	Professor	Disability and Human Development; Rehabilitation Sciences	UIC	US	Accessibility, participation, equity and inclusion, environmental interventions, disparities analyses
Maryam Hosseini	Research Scientist	Urban Systems	Rutgers/NYU	US	Computer vision, pedestrian infrastructure assessment, accessibility, walkability, active design
Reuben Kirkham	Professor	Human-Centered Computing	Monash Univ.	Australia	Navigation around barriers; documentation of barriers; disability human rights considerations
Melanie Kneisel	Engineer	Computer Science	Microsoft	US	Accessibility, inclusive navigation, spatial audio
Delphine Labbé	Professor	Disability and Human Development	UIC	US	Urban planning and policy for disability inclusive cities, lived experience and usability of technology
Fabio Miranda	Professor	Computer Science	UIC	US	Visualization, urban analytics
Stephen J. Mooney	Professor	Epidemiology	UW	US	Social and contextual influences on physical activity and injury
Victor Pineda	Activist/Scholar	Urban Planning	World Enabled	US	Disability rights expert, urbanist, founder of WorldEnabled.org
Cláudia Fonseca Pinhão	City Government	User Experience Design	Gemeeente Amsterdam	Netherlands	Equitable urban planning, walkable/rollable sustainable cities
Ana Rodríguez	NGO	Activism	Liga Peatonal	Mexico	Participation, implementation, walkability
Manaswi Saha	PhD Candidate	Computer Science	UW	US	Urban scale decision-making, data visualization, advocacy, tech for non-technical users
Michael Saugstad	Research Scientist	Computer Science	UW	US	Urban accessibility, data collection, tool building
Judy Shanley	NGO	Disability and Human Services	Easterseals	US	Urban accessibility, data collection, tool building
Ather Sharif	PhD Student	Computer Science	UW	US	Mapping accessibility of urban rail transit
Qing Shen	Professor	Urban Design and Planning	UW	US	Efficient, equitable, and environmentally responsible urban transportation
Cláudio T. Silva	Professor	Computer Science	UW	US	Urban sensing, analytics, and visualization. Co-founder of the Center for Data Science (CDS) and the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP)
Maarten Sukel	City Government	AI	Gemeeente Amsterdam	Netherlands	Crowd+AI tools for urban assessments, equitable urban planning
Eric K. Tokuda	Postdoc	Math Institute	Oxford	UK	Urban mobility, graphs, computer vision
Sebastian Felix Zappe	NGO	Activism	Sozialhelden e.V	Germany	Open accessibility data, public transit, routing
Anna Zivarts	NGO	Activism	Disability Rights Washington	US	Disability rights, Director of the Disability Mobility Initiative