The last few years have seen a substantial increase in the number and quality of distance indicators that can be used in the nearby Universe. Combined, these indicators strengthen the determination of the local Hubble constant; but the combination must properly account for their interdependence. Enter the Distance Network: a new framework to incorporate all relevant distance indicators in a robust, statistically rigorous formalism, with full error propagation and statistical tests to identify possible outliers, developed during a workshop at the International Space Science Institute (Bern) with the participation of many experts in all such methods.
The Distance Network yields an improved determination of the Hubble constant, with a baseline value of 73.50+/-0.81 km/s/Mpc, over 7 sigma from recent Lambda-CDM based estimates. We test many variants that include, exclude, or modify various methods; all yield values between 72.5 and 74.0 km/s/Mpc. We will share both the code and the data for the Distance Network, enabling the inclusion of future measurements in this framework.