Dan Cornwell lives in downtown Madison in a walkable neighborhood (Walkscore 98) yet depends on transit for trips outside of his neighborhood.
In 2007, Dan was trying to lay out a trip outside of Madison using transit and he found there were very few resources. The transit providers had maps of their own routes but no one connected those routes together. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation was ne help – they saw their role as building and maintaining highways and not much else. So Dan contacted 1000 Friends of Wisconsin and offered his time and energy to develop a statewide transit map.
Dan worked closely with 1000 Friends of Wisconsin Transportation Specialist Ward Lyles and together they produced the first and only known statewide transit map that identifies transit systems through the state and their linkages so that intercity transit could become reality for more people in the state.
We took the map to then-Secretary Frank Busalacchi, who directed his staff to put the map on the state website. That map is maintained and updated to this day.
What makes this effort more impressive is the fact that Dan is legally blind.