Many communities lack reliable, up-to-date information about essential elements of their transportation systems, preventing them from making the case for safety improvements. We learned how the State of Rhode Island and other communities are leveraging mapping technologies to address this problem, particularly to improve pedestrian safety. Watch our recording of the October 23, 2025 webinar Mapping What Matters: Building Safer Transportation Systems with Pedestrian Asset Data to learn about new tools to assess your community’s infrastructure and strengthen proposals to invest in change for safe streets.
We were joined by Asher Eskind, Principal Planner for the State of Rhode Island, and Bill Singleton, Senior Leadership at Ecopia AI, a sponsor of Vision Zero Network. Ecopia’s AI- powered mapping systems ingest imagery to create detailed maps of critical transportation infrastructure, helping to support healthier and safer communities. They shared ways that communities are using the mapping technology not only to better understand infrastructure needs, including sidewalks, crosswalks, bike lanes, and more, but also well beyond that. For instance, Rhode Island’s use extends well beyond pedestrian safety analysis, such as assessing sidewalk gaps and connections to transit stops. The high-precision data provided by Ecopia enabled Eskind’s team to partner with other agencies to also assess needs related to stormwater, land cover and other features of the built environment. Ecopia’s Singleton shared examples from other places, including Baltimore, Milwaukee and the State of Illinois, in which Ecopia’s data has been used to not only better understand transportation infrastructure, but to assess ADA compliance, support active transportation planning, enhance floodwater management and advance various public health initiatives, including urban heat mitigation.
The State of Rhode Island leveraged their initial focus on improving pedestrian safety with an opportunity to assess and address other statewide needs across other agencies.Better data and understanding of needs helps communities set clear investment priorities and compete for funding. It can also spur collaboration among agencies that usually work separately – improving economies of scale overall. Learn more about federal funding programs for transportation data and geospatial solutions for pedestrian and bicyclist safety. Thank you to Asher Eskind for sharing the experiences in Rhode Island and to Bill Singleton and Ecopia for supporting Vision Zero Network.