Our friends at SeeClickFix announced today that they have joined forces with The Washington Post, which now features a SeeClickFix widget on a new local news section called The Daily Gripe. The Post editors will highlight a “Gripe of the Day” and “They Fixed It!”, alerting readers to problems and solutions around the city and identifying who’s responsible in each case (today, for example, DDOT takes the heat…and gets the praise!)
We have featured SeeClickFix a few times in the past, introducing them in early 2009 and supporting their work ever since. (Remember “Snow Helpers?“) The site allows anyone to easily report non-emergency traffic road issues – a big pothole, for instance – and is a perfect example of how crowdsourcing is one of the most effective tools for city governments to identify and fix transport- and planning-related problems, especially road safety hazards.
Here are some great examples of how D.C. residents are using SeeClickFix to make streets safer:
- Dangerous pedestrian crossing: https://seeclickfix.com/issues/9243
- Dangerous intersection: https://seeclickfix.com/issues/38170
- Dangerous intersection: https://seeclickfix.com/issues/35763
…and the issues that have been solved:
OTHER UPDATES
Ben Berkowitz, co-founder of SeeClickFix, will be speaking as a panelist at an upcoming event about “Online Engagement for Sustainable Urban Mobility,” hosted by EMBARQ, the producer of this blog. RSVP here.
As we recently reported, D.C. integrated the mapping tool with its new Open311 API.
And now, SeeClickFix has a Spanish version and a Portuguese version, along with ten other languages (see their “choose language” tab at the bottom of the page.) The site is relying on volunteer translators to make SeeClickFix accessible around the globe.
So if your neighborhood isn’t on SeeClickFix, you can add it, and if your language isn’t there, you can translate it.
Cities across the EMBARQ Network, including Arequipa and Mexico City, are already seeing, clicking and fixing. We’re optimistic that this is just the start of global SeeClickFix usage, which could dramatically improve the efficiency of urban transit management in sprawling megacities around the world!
