  Accurate distances to local molecular clouds are critical for understanding
the star and planet formation process, yet distance measurements are often
obtained inhomogeneously on a cloud-by-cloud basis. We have recently developed
a method which combines stellar photometric data with Gaia DR2 parallax
measurements in a Bayesian framework to infer the distances of nearby dust
clouds to a typical accuracy of $\sim5\%$. After refining the technique to
target lower latitudes and incorporating deep optical data from DECam in the
southern Galactic plane, we have derived a catalog of distances to molecular
clouds in Reipurth (2008, Star Formation Handbook, vols I and II) which
contains a large fraction of the molecular material in the solar neighborhood.
Comparison with distances derived from maser parallax measurements towards the
same clouds shows our method produces consistent distances with $\lesssim10\%$
scatter for clouds across our entire distance spectrum (150 pc $-$ 2.5 kpc). We
hope this catalog of homogeneous distances will serve as a baseline for future
work.
