Data Science Day @ Columbia University

CANVAS is a web-based tool for systematically and reliably assessing neighborhood built, pedestrian and road way conditions using Google Street View.  Neighborhood auditing (aka Systematic Social Observation), a research technique where trained auditors visit neighborhoods to collect observational data on street level built and social environment conditions, has long been used in urban sociology, social epidemiology,  planning and design research and traffic safety research.  However, the approach is quite expensive with travel time costing more than actual on the ground research time. CANVAS obviates the need for travel and provides a uniform and centralized means of conducting neighborhood audits across larger areas and with higher density of observations than can be achieved using in-person audit methods.   CANVAS allows a research method that previously was used on a boutique scale to be deployed on an industrial scale.  Research using CANVAS to understand pedestrian injury risk in NYC was recently published.