Map and campaign examples
Hi Elene, that certainly sounds like a frustrating situation with the local government!
I think that the difference between pedestrian rights mapping campaign and a map for fixing streets is that you can use it to generate a response from the public rather than simply as a ‘suggestion box’ which the council will likely ignore. The public is not likely to be outraged by seeing that there are potholes in Tbilisi, but people being killed on the streets is another matter.
You mentioned that a core issue is simply raising people’s awareness that their rights to safety and public space are being trampled on. While a map may not influence with the council to make changes, it can tell a very clear story to the public. That this is a big, important, life-threatening issue, and injuries/deaths are happening on a larger scale than you perhaps notice in your day-to-day life.
When you can show that you have public support, your options with the council will be much greater than they are now.
The only crowdsourced pedestrian map I can think of is the one put together by a public radio station in Los Angeles, comparing the intersections which the council regards as dangerous with the submissions of the pedestrian and cycling public: http://projects.scpr.org/static/maps/pedestrian-safety/
Crowdsourced mapping is where I saw the potential for a collaboration with Elva or Jumpstart, but crowdsourced or not, these kinds of maps have been used to great effect to tell a powerful story - here for example is a thorough infographic from the New York Times last week, which accompanies an article with human stories of the victims of accidents: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/04/nyregion/where-pedestrians-and-bicyclists-are-injured-and-why.html
One of the direct action pedestrian rights groups in New York, Right of Way, has actually done exactly what I was thinking of with a stencilling campaign, to draw attention to accidents in the place they happen - in fact, there are plenty of relevant ideas you can borrow from them. http://www.rightofway.org/campaigns
oh, and to tag somebody in a comment, just write an ‘at’ sign and start typing the first couple of letters of somebody’s name - once you’ve typed e…r… you’ll see @ericnbarrett listed as one of the options in the space below the comment form. Click on it and the mention will be filled in for you. (if you already know somebody’s username, just write @TheirName and it will work.
