311 is joke in your town

Dana writes in

After the snow storm last Tuesday (17 February), bicycle commuters using the 14^th Street Bridge thought they knew two things.  Based on past experience, the bridge would be cleared and the Mount Vernon Trail would be untouched.  For my Wednesday commute it turned out the conventional wisdom was only half right – the Mount Vernon Trail was covered in snow but, while the traffic lanes on the upstream span of the 14^th Street Bridge had been completely cleared, the bike and pedestrian lane remained covered in snow.  At the DC end of the span, the ramp from East Basin Drive (in front of the Jefferson) to the actual bridge had been fully cleared, apparently by the National Park Service.

After walking my bike across the bridge, I logged into the District of Columbia’s 311 system to record a service ticket for snow removal.  That process was a bit problematic in that the on line system insisted on a street address and the 14^th Street Bridge doesn’t have one.

My ticket, recorded at 10:28 am on Wednesday read “Remove snow from the bike/ped lane on the upstream span of the 14th Street Bridge. Roadways were clear but bike/ped lanes were untouched.” The ticket was recorded as having been completed at 3:02 pm the same day. My evening commute across the bridge revealed the lanes had not been touched.

On Thursday morning, I called the 311 system and logged a second request.  I asked the 311 operator to contact me if there were any questions.  At about 10:15 am on Thursday, the 311 operator called me and conferenced in a District of Columbia Department of Transportation employee.  We discussed the location that needed snow removal and I thought success would be achieved.  Trail condition reports for the evening commute suggested that my optimism was premature as the snow and ice remained in the bike and pedestrian lane untouched. 

On Thursday evening, I logged my second on-line request, reading “Previous service ticket 15-00036086 was for the ped/bike lane on the southbound span of the 14th Bridge over the Potomac. The snow has not been removed from the ped/bike lane although the service ticket was shown as completed. Access to the ped/bike lane is from East Basin Drive in front of the Jefferson Memorial. If you think this has been completed, please contact me.”

That ticket was closed on Sunday (22 Feb) morning with the explanation that the ped/bike lane on the 14^th Street Bridge was “Private Property - Close SR” and I was advised to contact the “Federal (sic) Park Service” by the 311 system.

While I can understand the District establishing snow removal priorities, I find the process of actually logging a service request so cumbersome it might discourage the public engagement the system was intended to enhance.  It is baffling that the District’s service request process seems to make identifying and requesting municipal services by the public less effective.

To improve the process, the District needs to allow individuals identifying service requests to either point on a map or describe the location.  To rely on a pull down without some ability to provide other location information is a recipe for failure.  The 311 system should also provide some ability to challenge the conclusion of the system operators without the need to log a new service request.

The reality is that the District government, agencies, as well as members of the public all would benefit from a system that actually allows users to successfully log service requests. 

I use the app, and have had mixed results, but one nice feature over the website, which Dana used, is the ability to pick the spot on a map.

Nonetheless, I've had mixed results. Requesting bike parking installation (which does not have it's own category - should I use "Bicycle Issues" or "Parking"?) is an act of faith, a little like throwing a message in a bottle and hoping it gets found. Potholes have more success, though I battled with 311 over one particular pothole last summer. They kept reporting it fixed and I kept hitting it. It's not as user friendly as it could be, and clearly wasn't designed for dealing with bike issues like trails and sidepaths. 

In addition, pushing responsibility off to the citizen to contact NPS is a low-service move. The DC government is there to serve citizens, and dealing with the federal government is one way that they - being the professionals can do that. Certainly someone at DDOT has a better chance of contacting the right person at NPS than Joe Citizen does. In addition, I'd be surprised if clearing snow off the 14th Street Bridge is really NPS' responsibility. 

I've not used the Arlington report a problem tools, so I can't speak to how much better or worse those are.

In an ideal world, there would be but one regional toolset that would lead to the proper agency (DDOT, DPW, NPS, Arlington DOT, AOC, VDOT, etc...) being tasked, but that is admittedly a big lift. CaBi and WMATA are really exceptional in that regard. 

Comments

[Chris Slatt]

Arlington's are somewhat better - you can pick a spot on the map from both the app and the web version. For many problems, Arlington Staff contact the 3rd party that needs to be contacted for you.

For other issues, though, they don't - you get the same "you need to talk to X" and they tend to close the ticket the moment they've passed the buck on to the 3rd party (VDOT, Dominion, etc), rather than following up with them and closing the ticket when they've ensured that the 3rd party has actually done the work.

[jmarcusse]

When my 311 requests go unresolved, I've found calling DDOT directly works pretty well. I've always reached a friendly person, and they gave me an email address to send in a picture when they couldn't find my pothole. This probably wouldn't help with the jurisdictional confusion on the bridge, unfortunately.

[Matt]

There is an online portal for 311 that allows you to point and click on the map. Unfortunately, when I had the same issue on the Frederick Douglass Bridge yesterday, it would not allow me to click on the bridge, or the path that follows that was completely covered. It adjusted the location on the map to another point on South Capitol St, and im still not sure anyone even read the text before closing out the ticket.

[lauren]

call ddot bike-ped right now and ask if the CCT is clear of snow-- they dont know!! if they dont know, who does!?? 202 671 2331

it's hopeless folks. bikes are simply not going to be a priority in dc in our lifetimes... the nps is anitbike. i had a friend tell me this years ago and i thought he was wrong. i now think he is right. im moving back to san fran. if you try living a city where there is something --- anything -- going on that is politically progressive, youll soon realize how backward dc is. and i say this despite obvious improvement in dc in the last decade.

[Citizen]

The map feature on DC 311 is cumbersome. It's easy to have the incorrect address selected if you don't do it right. Then DC sends people out to the wrong street and reports the problem fixed.

I did manage to get the torn-up concrete fixed and replaced, in the 15th St. bike path, next to the Treasury building between F and G St. There were large cracks and dips on the curb side of the old concrete pad (when it used to be a bus stop). I landed in it on a CaBi bike, with a thud. (On a road bike, I might have gotten knocked off the bike.) It took a few tries, but eventually someone sent out a work crew, tore up the crumbling concrete and resurfaced it with asphalt. (Buses no longer stop there since it's part of the "cycletrack" now.)

Arlington is usually more responsive, except at locations where different jurisdictions overlap: Arlington, VDOT, NPS. One minor problem is a swastika carved into the concrete along Rte. 1, near the intersection with Crystal Drive. It's visible on Google Maps Street View here. I've reported it a few times, but it gets shuffled around among different organizations.

http://goo.gl/maps/KDglt

Another long-term item is a clump of concrete that must have fallen out of the back of a truck years ago, when Potomac Ave. was being built. It's close to the bike lane, so it might be a problem for unsuspecting cyclists. I've reported it a few times to different agencies: ARL, VDOT. I even spoke with a VDOT rep, but I think the concrete clump is still there.

http://goo.gl/maps/NkFb2