Code for Cities 1st Place
- Vivian Li
- Feb 1
- 1 min read
EconEngineers | USA
Cities rely heavily on residents to report broken sidewalks, unsafe curb ramps, and dangerous crosswalks, but most reports are handled in a first-come, first-served way. This often means that highly dangerous issues, especially those affecting elderly people, wheelchair users, and children, are not fixed as quickly as they should be.
StepSafe is a lightweight web application that improves how cities manage pedestrian infrastructure issues. Residents can submit reports about sidewalk cracks, missing curb ramps, blocked walkways, or unsafe crossings, including severity, location, and who is affected. Instead of treating all reports equally, StepSafe calculates a priority score that considers factors such as danger level, number of people affected, and accessibility impact.
The app displays reported issues on a clean dashboard where city staff, or even community organizations, can sort and filter problems by urgency. This allows limited city resources to be directed toward fixes that create the greatest improvement in safety and accessibility.
StepSafe supports UN Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities by promoting safer, more inclusive public infrastructure. The project is designed to be realistic, easy to scale, and understandable, showing how computer science can directly improve everyday life in cities.
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