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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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