A new mobile app will now allow users to make requests for city maintenance via mobile devices, as a result of a civic maintenance reporting project completed at last weekend's during the A2 Hack for Change.
A prototype of the application.
Courtesy of Kathy Griswold
The mobile application would allow citizens to report infrastructure problems ranging from issues with bike lanes to burdensome potholes directly to the source with the tap of a finger. The program also would allow users to communicate new ideas for structures they would like to see in the city.
"With this mobile app, you bring up a screen and tap to identify what the problem is," project developer Kathy Griswold said. "You can take a picture of the issue you want to report on and then a GPS coordinate, as well as a date and time stamp, are attached to the photo. It is then sent to the city."
Griswold said originally she was more interested in reporting vegetation hanging over sidewalks or bushes blocking sight-lines, but other people liked the possibility of being able to report issues with roads and sidewalks.
"This sort of application is necessary because the city spends millions of dollars on infrastructure for non-motorized transportation and this program would make it very easy to help maintain that infrastructure," Griswold said.
Griswold also said there has been interest in making the interface county-wide, meaning all information would be sent to the county database and passed on to its respective city. She believes this would be beneficial to smaller towns.
"The app would be a way for individuals to provide feedback and it's so easy that I think people would use it," Griswold said. "The seamless interface to the local government's Citizen Request System will encourage non-motorized transportation by providing information the city needs to better maintain existing infrastructure and identify as well as justify needed new infrastructure."
Griswold said her target date to have some form of the application available is June 30.
"If we can get the code from another city that already uses a similar program, we don't have that many technical problems to deal with. It's about getting everyone together and dealing with the political and bureaucratic decision making and educating the community."
More research would be needed to determine whether software from another city or buying software from a company would be more cost-efficient. Although using pre-existing software would be free, it would require remodeling to fit Washtenaw County, which could be more expensive than starting from scratch, Griswold said.
"I'm really excited about the possibilities. There seems to be a lot of interest and a lot of software out there," Griswold said.
Griswold said the next step is to contact the Bloomington IT department in Indiana since the city utilizes a similar interface.
The city maintenance application was not the only project to arise from A2 Hack for Change. According to Hans Kokx, organizer of event, a web-application that would allow users to map the carbon footprint of neighborhoods also came from the event.
Kokx said users also would be able to input their household energy usage and then compare carbon footprints with others in the neighborhood.
"Both are very different projects, but both are incredibly helpful to everybody living in Ann Arbor," Kokx said.
A2 Hack for Change is a part of the National Day of Civic Hacking, which is a national event held to bring software developers, entrepreneurs and citizens together to solve issues in their community.
Chelsea Hoedl is an intern reporter for AnnArbor.com. She can be reached at choedl@mlive.com.