Despite diverse mobility needs worldwide, existing mapping tools fail to address the varied experiences of different mobility device users. This paper presents a large-scale online survey exploring how five mobility groups -- users of canes, walkers, mobility scooters, manual wheelchairs, and motorized wheelchairs -- perceive sidewalk barriers. Using 52 sidewalk barrier images, respondents evaluated their confidence in navigating each scenario. Our findings (N=190) reveal variations in barrier perceptions across groups, while also identifying shared concerns. To further demonstrate the value of this data, we showcase its use in two custom prototypes: a visual analytics tool and a personalized routing tool. Our survey findings and open dataset advance work in accessibility-focused maps, routing algorithms, and urban planning.

We have entered a new era of computing—one where AI permeates every aspect of society from education to healthcare. In this workshop, we examine the emerging role of AI in the design of equitable and accessible cities, transportation systems, and interactive tools for mapping and navigation. We will solicit short papers around key Urban AI + disability themes, including autonomous vehicles, intelligent wheelchairs, assistive human-robotic interaction, assessing and navigating pedestrian pathways, indoor accessibility, and overarching challenges related to ethics, bias, and data privacy and security. We invite both traditional HCI and accessibility researchers as well as scholars and practitioners from other disciplines relevant to this workshop, including disability studies, gerontology, social work, community psychology, and law. Our overarching goal is to identify open challenges, share current work across disciplines, and spur new collaborations related to AI and urban accessibility.

Despite decades of effort, pedestrian infrastructure in cities continues to be unsafe or inaccessible to people with disabilities. In this paper, we examine the potential of community-driven digital civics to assess sidewalk accessibility through a deployment study of an open-source crowdsourcing tool called Project Sidewalk. We explore Project Sidewalk’s potential as a platform for civic learning and service. Specifically, we assess its effectiveness as a tool for community members to learn about human mobility, urban planning, and accessibility advocacy. Our findings demonstrate that community-driven digital civics can support accessibility advocacy and education, raise community awareness, and drive pro-social behavioral change. We also outline key considerations for deploying digital civic tools in future community-led accessibility initiatives.

Public transportation provides vital connectivity to people with disabilities, facilitating access to work, education, and health services. While modern navigation applications provide a suite of information about transit options—including real-time updates about bus or train arrivals—they lack data about the accessibility of the transit stops themselves. Bus stop features such as seatings, shelters, and landing areas are critical, but few cities provide this information. In this demo paper, we introduce BusStopCV, a Human+AI web prototype for scalably collecting data on bus stop features using real-time computer vision and human labeling. We describe BusStopCV’s design, custom training with the YOLOv8 model, and an evaluation of 100 randomly selected bus stops in Seattle, WA. Our findings demonstrate the potential of BusStopCV and highlight opportunities for future work.

Inaccessible urban infrastructure creates and reinforces systemic exclusion of people with disabilities and impacts public health, physical activity, and quality of life for all. To improve the design of our cities and to enable more equitable policies and location-centric technology designs, we need new data collection techniques, data standards, and accessibility-infused analytic tools and interactive maps focused on the quality, safety, and accessibility of pathways, transit ecosystems, and buildings. In this workshop, we 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.