The Public Works Group blog provides information, observations, and interesting items related to the public works field. And mixed throughout the traditional issues of sewer backups, ADA compliance, and road construction are posts exploring new technology and how it fits into our field.
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We are always interested in hearing new ideas, having guest bloggers who work in the public works field, and partnering with vendors in the industry. Feel free to contact us at pwg@publicworksgroup.com if you want to be a guest blogger or if you are interested in posting an ad. Or just e-mail us to say hi or share your thoughts!
Hi thank you so much for this noteworthy website:
I want to showcase a nonprofit website that I recently developed and launched. As a graduate student in economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who researches transportation and infrastructure, I believe we must take advantage of a powerful monitoring/maintenance tool: user input.
Currently, local residents, the everyday users of infrastructure, have been unengaged and uninformed in the maintenance of our roads, bridges, water systems, electric lines, and other facilities. They know if a pothole or a sewer backup is found, they must report it to the city, but do they really or let the problem exacerbate until it is an emergency? And what phone number or email address do they report the problem? What about after business hours? And why are web forms hard to fill out, let alone find, on cluttered public works websites? Why can't engaged citizens see the other issues or comments reported to the city to start a conversation, raise awareness, and motivate action? Finally, what should citizens do in order to report on infrastructure beyond the scope of local public works such as highways and bridges (for state DOTs); libraries, and schools (for separate facility managers); subways and buses (for public transit agencies); and many others? And what are their contact information?
These questions forced me to develop a one-stop, database-driven website, http://www.infrainput.org, that encompasses all public infrastructure facilities from airports to water pipes. In an age of social media, forums, and blogging, now local residents can input their issues and ideas in a user-friendly, simple interface. In addition, they can see their entries along with many others local and nationwide (all 50 states including DC and Puerto Rico) through output tables. As the new site gains traction, public works managers, policymakers, and citizens can see all the issues in their local and regional jurisdictions in real-time and hopefully use the targeted entries to tackle our aging infrastructure system.
Let me know what you think and if you can pass this along.
Thanks,
Parfait
I just wanted to respond to the blog post titled "To Share or Not to Share". I am a vendor, specifically for rentals of under bridge access equipment. While I completely understand how time-consuming it would be to field phone calls requesting bidders or plan holders lists, I wanted to just throw our perspective in there. First of all, I have never CALLED for a list. I agree with your blogger that this is asking someone else to do my job. I also get it that some vendors are not this considerate. But as for posting the list of bidders on your web page, I just can't see where this is a negative, despite the concern for price-fixing. Our rates are our rates. They don't change for anyone unless there are extenuating circumstances. Being able to get our rental rates to the estimators bidding the jobs is crucial to getting the best rate possible for all. Anyone who is going to cheat or inflate prices is going to figure out a way to do that, and it is just never a good business plan. We are a small company trying to make it in a big market. If we are going to keep our RATES low, we have to keep our COSTS low. Advertising is expensive, so we use plan holders lists to update our database and contact contractors directly to let them know we exist. If they need us, they contact us and we provide a quote. This is the cheapest, most effective way to do this and it has worked well. None of the issues posted by the blogger have ever been a part of our business strategy. We just want to get the word out to the companies bidding jobs that we are here to provide additional services they need. When estimators are trying to get these bids in, they are scrambling to get all the information, too. It just makes sense that the public works departments would be trying to help get the best information and best quotes possible by posting who is bidding what jobs. Just a thought.
Your pwg blog is really awesome and hosts interesting and useful information. I own a blog named Civil Engineering Scientist . I am interested to mention your company on my site. Please let me know how you would like to be mentioned e.g guest post, review or just a link.
I will be really grateful if you respond.
Thanks