Digital 311 with GIS tools comes to Boston

[Lurker]

Hub weaves web of woes on new site
Potholes, repairs to be tracked online
By Jessica Van Sack | Monday, August 24, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics



The Urban Mechanic is going digital.
Neighborhood gripes logged by the mayor?s hotline - from pesky potholes to streetlight repairs - can now be tracked online by the public as the city launches a new Web site today, just weeks before Mayor Thomas M. Menino faces three challengers in the Sept. 22 primary election.
The new Boston GIS Data Hub is full of brick-and-mortar tidbits about what?s been fixed - and what needs fixing - on Beantown streets.
?It?s about transparency,? said Bill Oates, the city?s chief information officer. ?Ultimately, the expectation is all city services will be mobilized? and connected to the system.
The system contains data on the top 10 service agencies that come into the hotline - including parks, sanitation, street cleaning and transportation departments.
Although he?s averse to voicemail and hardly known for technological prowess, Menino is refusing to cede innovation to his three fresher-faced challengers - developer Kevin McCrea, and at-large councilors Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon.
Flaherty in particular has called for the Hub to adopt CitiStat, a performance-management system used by cities such as Baltimore and New York to increase government efficiency. He launched an ad campaign that likens Menino to an old Sony Walkman, himself to a sleek iPod.
Menino?s team hit back with an anvil, announcing weeks later a first-of-its-kind iPhone application that allows residents to snap a photo of neighborhood blights such as graffiti and potholes and e-mail them to City Hall for service requests.
As of today, the GIS Hub will allow residents to log online and see where those complaints and others fall on a map, when they were logged and whether they?ve been fixed.
The system includes other handy information, such as maps with neighborhood and police district boundaries.
Eventually, the portal will include the work of all city agencies, including the building department, inspectional services and police, Oates said. Project architects envision a system that tracks in real-time the daily feats of city workers - including their response times.
?We?re hoping this will look totally different in a year,? Oates said.


Visit for maps and all the overlays:

http://hubmaps1.cityofboston.gov/datahub/

Visit here to submit work orders:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/mayor/24/

I for one am going to make a mission out of reporting every sidewalk NSTAR screws up throughout the city.

[Corey]

Interesting stuff, I wish Portland could implement something like this.