Taskar Center for Accessible Technology

We were so proud this week to support the Vancouver Walk & Roll event, expertly facilitated by Anna Zivarts and the Nondriver's Alliance. What made this event especially meaningful was seeing , our statewide, consistent pedestrian dataset, in action. Not just as a dataset transportation planners can rely on, but as a living system where communities actively contribute to and shape the data.

Funded by a legislative proviso, OS-CONNECT is open, shared infrastructure for pedestrian data. It enables communities, agencies, and planners to collaboratively build, validate, and use sidewalk and accessibility data across tools and contexts.

Folks at the event, including elected officials, advocates, and planners experienced firsthand how to contribute pedestrian data using AVIV ScoutRoute. At the same time, students from the Washington State School for the Blind used that same data to navigate real routes in AccessMap.app. Most importantly, participants shared real-time feedback: filled in additional detail, identified where conditions were poor, found delight in agreeing with good data that accompanied our hour-long walkabout! That feedback loop is where data truly comes alive.

We’re grateful for the engagement, and how storytelling through data brings these diverse groups together around a shared goal: the freedom to go where you want, with dignity.

Our work touches all travelers. We invite you to join us at 2026, learn more about pedestrian access and reach and how we can make real change, on February 26–27 to experience it firsthand:

https://tcat.cs.washington.edu/otp2026/

alt text: A flyer for TCAT and PROVAIL's annual toy hackathon . Sign up to request or sponsor a toy at tinyURL.com/ToyHack2025 (http://tinyurl.com/ToyHack2025)
PROVAIL is once again partnering with the University of Washington’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology for TCAT’s Annual Holiday Toy Hackathon! Families of youth and adults with disabilities are invited to request or sponsor a switch-accessible toy.
Please submit this form by November 28th.
Sign-up form: www.tinyURL.com/ToyHack2025
The Holiday Hackathon reflects one of the Taskar Center’s core missions to increase access to play and recreation through technology supported community projects.
Thank you!

The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology – Designing for the fullness of human experience TCAT harnesses the power of open-source technology to develop, translate, and deploy accessible technologies, and then sustain them in the hands of communities. Housed by the Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering, TCAT centers the experience of people with disabilities as a lens fo...