Share stories about where you've been in a crash or near miss, or where you feel safe or unsafe traveling using our Street Story tool.
Street Story
Street Story(link is external) is a community engagement tool that allows residents, community groups and agencies to collect information about transportation collisions, near-misses, general hazards and safe locations to travel. To promote access to the tool, SafeTREC conducts technical assistance with communities and organizations on using Street Story. Street Story is free to use and publicly accessible.
Street Story features a survey where people can record travel experiences. Once a record has been entered, the information is publicly accessible on the website with maps and tables that can be downloaded.
Community organizations and agencies can use this information as part of qualitative information gathering approaches for local needs assessments, transportation safety planning efforts, safety programs and project proposals. In order to help ensure access to the tool, we work directly with community organizations across California to incorporate the Street Story tool into their existing projects and programs(link is external). We provide in-person workshops, webinars, and one-on-one assistance.
The program was created by a team of city planners, public health professionals, engineers, social welfare experts and computer scientists at UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC). As it is a relatively new tool, we are continually evaluating how it is used and exploring what changes may need to be made to strengthen it.
Street Story is available in any city or county in California. If you are interested in learning how your own community can use Street Story, please contact Jill Cooper at streetstory@...(link sends e-mail).
Visit Street Story at: https://streetstory.berkeley.edu/(link is external)
Street Story at Work
Street Story is being used to complement transportation safety efforts in a number of communities across California. To learn more about how Street Story is being used, visit our SafeTREC in the News page.
Street Story Technical Assistance
We offer in-person and online trainings to assist organizations in finding ways to use the Street Story tool that fit specific community needs. If you are interested in learning more about Street Story and opportunities for collaboration, please email streetstory@...(link sends e-mail).
Upcoming events and recordings of past Street Story webinars:
- August 7, 2019 - Street Story at Work: How Communities are Using the Tool. In this webinar, you'll hear from UC Berkeley SafeTREC, California Walks, Bike Bakersfield and Humboldt County's Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities how community organizations are learning about local transportation safety issues from their community members via Street Story. The presenters will also share ideas about how you can use Street Story in community engagement activities. Watch the webinar(link is external).
- July 17, 2019 - Introducing Street Story: A Tool for Community Engagement. In this webinar, you will hear about how Street Story works, and learn about ideas on how you can use Street Story in community engagement activities. Watch the webinar(link is external).
- February 5, 2019 - Active Transportation Resource Center (ATRC) Webinar. Watch the recording: Street Story: A Platform for Community Engagement(link is external)
Street Story FAQ
What is Street Story?
Street Story is a community engagement tool where individuals can anonymously report collisions, near-misses and places they feel safe or unsafe. Organizations can use the tool as qualitative data for transportation safety advocacy, outreach, education, planning and evaluation.
Street Story is not a substitute for reporting collisions to the police.
Why Street Story?
Stories can provide rich and important qualitative information about transportation safety issues that we may not be able to learn about from traditional data sources.
Street Story allows individuals to record narratives, geographical and categorical information about their transportation experiences, and then stores this information in publicly accessible maps and tables. Entries can be easily recorded and shared with community partners.
How was Street Story created?
SafeTREC researchers recognized that community members have a wealth of information about transportation safety. Street Story is designed to help residents and community organizations record and understand this kind of information. Street Story was created with significant input from members of the public, community organizations, city and county agencies, and industry experts.
How will the information be used?
The information collected on Street Story is publicly accessible, and is designed to be used as qualitative input for transportation safety needs assessments, program development, grant writing, planning efforts, evaluations, etc. SafeTREC may use the data for transportation safety research.
Is Street Story available in multiple languages?
The online version of Street Story is currently only available in English. A paper version of Street Story is available in Spanish. Over the next year, we hope to create an online version of Street Story in Spanish.
How can I get involved?
For more information about how to use Street Story, check out our Street Story Starter Kit(link is external), or email streetstory@...(link sends e-mail).
What’s next?
The Street Story team is working directly with organizations to collect community input using the tool. As we learn how Street Story is being used, we are making improvements to the program.
For the latest news and updates on Street Story, please sign up for the SafeTREC newsletter(link is external).
Research and Publications
The following publications describe research conducted by SafeTREC and partners on crowdsourced data:
UC Berkeley's Center for Technology, Society & Policy(link is external) funded research conducted by SafeTREC researchers Aditya Medury, Kate Beck and Jesus Barajas on Race and Income Disparities in Crowdsourced Traffic Safety in 2017.
Crashes on and Near College Campuses: A Comparative Analysis of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety(link is external). Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Aditya Medury, Camille Fink, Offer Grembek, Kevan Shafizadeh, Norman Wong, & Phyllis Orrick. Journal of the American Planning Association Vol. 80, Iss. 3, 2014.
Investigating the underreporting of pedestrian and bicycle safety crashes in and around university campuses-a crowdsourcing approach(link is external). Aditya Medury, Offer Grembek, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, & Kevan Shafizadeh. Accident Analysis and Prevention (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.08.014(link is external).
Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
