{"id":19789,"date":"2024-07-21T10:16:26","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T06:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/?p=19789"},"modified":"2025-12-13T12:00:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T12:00:45","slug":"meet-the-wheelchair-user-making-google-maps-more-accessible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/meet-the-wheelchair-user-making-google-maps-more-accessible\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Wheelchair User Making Google Maps More Accessible"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”19790″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_border”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a basic human right to enter a place like anybody else,\u201d says Sasha Blair-Goldensohn. This simple ideal can seem maddeningly out of reach for wheelchair users in America\u2019s largest and most expensive metropolis. But for Blair-Goldensohn, a 48-year-old software engineer and\u00a0United Spinal member<\/a>\u00a0from New York City, it\u2019s the driving force of his life.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Blair-Goldensohn lived in Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side and used the subway on the daily commute to his job at Google\u2019s Chelsea office. With a doctorate based in artificial intelligence and natural language processing from Columbia University, Blair-Goldensohn was working in AI when it was still a behind-the-scenes tool.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first project that I worked on when I came here was about how Maps handles reviews,\u201d he says. \u201cA restaurant might have 3,000 reviews and want to be able to throw all of them into the AI blender and have it pop out a summary: \u2018People say this place has great soup dumplings, really long lines and it gets super crowded.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Though his work at Google touched on its Maps technology, he wasn\u2019t thinking much about the actual route-finding features \u2014 how people get from A to B. That changed one morning while he was walking through Central Park to catch the subway and a 100-pound tree limb fell on him. The limb fractured his skull and he sustained a T5 spinal cord injury.<\/p>\n

Recovery and rehab was lengthy and full of setbacks, but after a year and a half he was ready to return to work. His experience was eye-opening. Blair-Goldensohn\u2019s Manhattan commute was hampered by a Metropolitan Transportation Authority system that, more than 30 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, still lacked wheelchair access in nearly 75% of commuter train stations.<\/p>\n

Subway elevators were frequently broken down, further limiting mobility and inclusion. \u201cYou are either stuck on the inside or the outside,\u201d he says. \u201cIn one situation, at least you are on the surface, but you realize there\u2019s no way home because the elevator is shut down for who knows how long. In the other situation, you are several flights of stairs down and you have to rely on strangers to carry you out.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: \u00a0New Mobility<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\n\u201cIt\u2019s a basic human right to enter a place like anybody else,\u201d says Sasha Blair-Goldensohn. This simple ideal can seem maddeningly out of reach for wheelchair users in America\u2019s largest and most expensive metropolis. But for Blair-Goldensohn, a 48-year-old software engineer and\u00a0United Spinal member\u00a0from New York City, it\u2019s the driving force…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":355,"featured_media":19790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,23,43,28,18],"tags":[96],"class_list":{"0":"post-19789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-english","8":"category-english-press","9":"category-event-news","10":"category-limitless-newsletter","11":"category-news","12":"tag-limitless-july"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/355"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19789"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33317,"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789\/revisions\/33317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accessabilitiesexpo.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}