The District Department of Transportation announced today that they have launched its first official blog, known as the “d.ish.”

In his first post, DDOT Director Gabe Klein explains the importance of communications:

We have been working hard to create a more transparent DDOT and a customer-centric agency and this new blog is the latest of many outreach components we are excited to launch. We have beefed up our communications, marketing, transportation demand management (TDM), and IT capabilities (we have a great new CIO, Lance Schine btw).

And, btw again, Lance Schine, who joined DDOT on May 10, will be a panelist at an upcoming event on June 15 about “online engagement for sustainable urban mobility,” hosted by EMBARQ, the producer of this blog. He’ll be talking about things like interactive information displays for bus shelters – another example of how innovative and well-planned communications can help improve transportation in the District.

Under Klein’s leadership, DDOT has made a concerted effort to expand its online outreach.They have a Twitter account, Facebook page, and according to the d.ish, a beta version of the Transportation Access Portal for project information (dTAP), which “provides public access to an open, transparent, and accountable detail of DDOT’s projects and programs,” including information about budgeting and scheduling. (It looks like a simpler version of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Dashboard, which we wrote about here, when discussing how to measure and encourage government accountability for transport projects.) DDOT officials have also been actively involved in responding to reports on SeeClickFix, as we saw here, when we reported a dangerous intersection

D.ish, you’re on our blogroll!