Supporting livable cities is a key priority of theObama Administration, fully embraced by the US Secretary ofTransportation, and necessitates increased active transportation (walkingand cycling) in communities across the country. Transportation data thatsupports active transportation planning is lacking for most communities.With the increasing pervasiveness of smartphones that are graphicallyrich, spatially accurate, and simple to use, it is now possible to approachtransportation and livability data collection in a new way by engagingcitizens directly in the process.This paper describes the development and testing of an iPhonebased transportation livability audit tool called the Fix This Tool, a toolspecifically designed to engage and empower citizens across the countryto easily collect active transportation data in order to help localcommunities and transportation agencies meet the needs of the livabilityera. The tool requires no training, is spatially specific, and focuses bothon the subjective perception of place as well as some of the objectivevariables that may be important to note.Through initial development and testing, we found the tool to beintuitive for people to use, data robust, and that the combination offeatures available on a smartphone-based tool provides a rich set ofopportunities for both citizen and public agency to be engaged inimproving their active transportation system. That said, it is clear thatactive transportation data can be complex and ‘messy’ and will requirenew approaches toward use than traditional, objective measured regionalscale measures used for transportation modeling.
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