Open Pathways Alliance
Connecting Communities to Opportunity
A membership alliance helping communities understand, improve, and steward the everyday pathways that connect people to health, work, school, services, recreation, and civic life.
Open Pathways Alliance brings together advocates, public agencies, researchers, service providers, and technology partners to turn local knowledge into practical action. We help members collect meaningful community input, use mobility and accessibility information in everyday decisions, and prioritize improvements that make places more livable.
Why Open Pathways?
Transportation is not only about trips. It is about whether people can reach the places that make life possible: clinics, schools, bus stops, grocery stores, parks, libraries, jobs, housing, social services, and community gathering spaces.
Too often, community concerns remain trapped in meeting notes, complaint logs, one-time surveys, or stories that are difficult to translate into operational priorities. Open Pathways helps communities turn lived experience into usable knowledge: where barriers are, what makes a place feel unsafe or inaccessible, and which improvements would most improve quality of life.
The question we help communities answer
Can people actually get where they need to go — safely, reliably, affordably, and with dignity?
Alliance Objectives
Connect people to opportunity
Improve understanding of how transportation, walking, rolling, transit, land use, and destination access shape everyday quality of life.
Support better local decisions
Help members maintain practical, usable knowledge about local barriers, priorities, and improvements across agencies and community partners.
Translate concerns into operations
Turn community observations into structured, actionable information: “what would make this more livable is…” data that agencies can review, prioritize, and act on.
Access to Opportunity Scorecard
The Scorecard helps communities measure what matters: whether people can reach the places, services, and relationships that support a good life.
It combines community-reported concerns, local priorities, accessibility information, destination access, and livability indicators into a repeatable framework that members can use for planning, funding, operations, and public accountability.
What the Scorecard can track
What Members Receive
Open Pathways Alliance is designed to help organizations move from scattered input and disconnected data toward shared community mobility intelligence.
Community Engagement Events
- Mobile-app supported walk, roll, and transit access audits
- Community mapping events
- Accessible engagement templates
- Support translating lived experience into operational findings
Everyday Data Use Training
- Training for non-GIS staff
- How to use local mobility data in daily workflows
- Dashboards, reports, and plain-language interpretation
- Data-to-decision clinics for agencies and advocates
Access to Opportunity Scorecards
- Local and regional scorecard templates
- Livability indicators shaped by member priorities
- Community-facing reporting
- Evidence for grants, plans, and investments
Tools and Technical Support
- Guidance on mobile data collection workflows
- Use of accessibility and pathway data tools
- Office hours with data, accessibility, and engagement experts
- Help connecting local data to regional and statewide systems
Shared Learning Network
- Peer exchange across agencies, advocates, researchers, and providers
- Case studies and reusable methods
- Regional priority conversations
- Member showcases and implementation stories
Funding and Impact Support
- Grant language and evidence packages
- Community need documentation
- Impact reporting templates
- Partnership matchmaking for pilots and proposals
The Open Pathways Flywheel
The Alliance is built around a practical cycle: listen to community experience, map barriers, translate concerns into operational priorities, track improvements, and report back in ways that build public trust.
Each cycle strengthens the next. Better community engagement produces better information. Better information supports better decisions. Better decisions create visible improvements. Visible improvements increase trust and participation.
Example workflow
Community walk audit → mobile app observations → livability themes → operational review → prioritized improvements → public-facing impact story → updated Access to Opportunity Scorecard.
Membership Tiers
Membership is structured so that community organizations, public agencies, regional institutions, and industry partners can all participate meaningfully.
For disability organizations, senior advocates, youth groups, neighborhood groups, and community-based organizations.
- Member meetings
- Community event toolkit
- Training access
- Scorecard input role
For cities, counties, transit agencies, MPOs, DOT programs, school mobility programs, and public health partners.
- Office hours
- Data use training
- Engagement event support
- Operational translation templates
For regional agencies, foundations, healthcare systems, universities, and multi-jurisdictional initiatives.
- Regional learning sessions
- Priority-setting workshops
- Custom briefings
- Shared impact reporting
For organizations investing in the long-term future of accessible, community-centered mobility knowledge.
- Recognition as sustaining partner
- Strategic advisory role
- Pilot collaboration opportunities
- Featured scorecard or case study