The Garage Gadget That Could Change Your Street
When Matt Zajack first mounted a camera above his garage in Portland, he wasn’t trying to build the next big tech startup. He just wanted to help his neighbors prove what they already knew: people use this street in all kinds of ways.
With a Raspberry Pi, a wide-angle camera, and an LED screen, Zajack assembled an AI-powered “Traffic Monitor” that quietly tracks how the street is used. It counts people walking, biking, and driving. It logs vehicle speeds. It even gathers environmental data like temperature and air quality—all from a device the size of a shoebox.
It may not look like much, but in the hands of a community, this tool can be transformative.
“A couple of years ago, I realized there are a lot of organizations, like Bike Loud PDX and others, who were looking to measure the impact of the programs they were doing, and also argue against a lot of the sparse data that was only really provided by municipalities,” Zajack told Bike Portland, adding: “A lot of the only solutions for traffic monitoring cameras are from private companies doing implementations that cost tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars that can really only be used by municipalities and very large companies.” That’s when it clicked for him: “We can do these things for a lot cheaper.”
What’s most exciting about Zajack’s creation isn’t just the price tag—it’s how it shifts the center of gravity. Instead of waiting for a city to run a study (if it ever does), neighbors can install a tool like this and reinforce the data they’ve been collecting themselves.
That kind of street-level clarity has never been more important. Communities pushing for safer design need evidence, especially when local governments are strapped for time, funding, or political will. That’s where Zajack’s device intersects with the spirit of Strong Towns’ Crash Analysis Studio, a grassroots model for traffic safety where neighbors meet at the site of a crash to see firsthand what went wrong and brainstorm immediate, practical fixes. In one community, this kind of bottom-up effort revealed the extent to which the design of an intersection had contributed to 28 crashes in just five years.
The Traffic Monitor strengthens that kind of work. It’s not replacing human judgment—it’s reinforcing it. It turns local memory and personal stories into measurable facts.
Crucially, Zajack’s device isn’t just counting cars. It’s capturing the full rhythm of a neighborhood—the parents walking kids to school, the cyclists navigating narrow margins, the residents crossing mid-block because that’s the only place that feels safe. And in a world where official traffic data often undercounts or overlooks those human-scale realities, this kind of technology can be a game changer.
In a way, this project isn’t really about technology—it’s about storytelling. It’s about helping residents show what’s happening on their streets and why it matters. And when paired with organizing, advocacy, and vision, that’s where the real change starts.
Because ultimately, you don’t need to be a traffic engineer to know when something’s not working—you just need to care enough to look, and the right tools to show what you see. Whether you're a neighbor pushing for change or a city official looking for better ways to engage the public, the Crash Analysis Studio model offers a practical, collaborative approach to rethinking dangerous streets—and making them safer for everyone.
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