Traffic Monitoring
Access to traffic information, updates.
Content/Information Architecture : Browse Popular Ideas
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This idea is active.Content/Information Architecture »Add your comment for Idea: Traffic Monitoring
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Open Mayor Activities
Add your comment for Idea: Open Mayor ActivitiesThe mayor should inform his constituents what
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Resources for New Residents
Add your comment for Idea: Resources for New ResidentsA list of all the service providers for new residents - cable providers, utilities, etc.
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GIS-format data wherever possible
1 comment for Idea: GIS-format data wherever possibleCoA is already doing a lot with GIS (Geographic Information Systems, IE digital mapping and layering w/ location-specific data); they could do more and make much more available to the public, especially regarding environmental and planning data.
For endless ideas, see http://www.gis.com/index.html & http://www.esri.com/technology_trends/index.html.
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feedback/ratings on public services
Add your comment for Idea: feedback/ratings on public servicesAbility to give feedback on services or agencies: ratings, kudos, complaints, requests for different hours or locations, etc. Of course, this would need some kind of "deputized" moderation that keeps it from being a flame-war, and doesn't scare the pants off the bureaucrats, yet allows real problems to "bubble up" and be seen.
Imagine what might happen with certain law-enforcement matters...
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Use WebKit (HTML5) Client Side Databases When Available
Add your comment for Idea: Use WebKit (HTML5) Client Side Databases When AvailableHTML5 includes a powerful client side SQL DB capability that hardly any sites use yet. This would be a perfect place to store user prefs and other user-specific data instead of in session variables, if the browser allows it. Could fall back to session variables and cookies for older browsers, but any WebKit based browser should be able to manage its own user data.
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comprehensive voting record of each council member
Add your comment for Idea: comprehensive voting record of each council membercomprehensive voting record of each council member
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Community input
Add your comment for Idea: Community inputI would like to see a Yelp - style input/feedback section. The community should be able to rate services and make comments. I realize this can get ugly, but if Yelp and the neighborhood listservs are any example the sum total is quite informative.
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more info about environmental impacts
Add your comment for Idea: more info about environmental impactsi'd like to see easy access to envision central tx, austin energy, austin water conservation, austin watershed protection, city solid waste services, and etc -- on per capita eco impacts reporting. . .
obviously there are load studies and reports done in order to scale services.
why not share that with us citizens, so we can self monitor a bit more?
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Map of where free wireless access is available.
Add your comment for Idea: Map of where free wireless access is available.A chart or map of where free wireless access is available. List coffee shops, libraries, etc. Maybe even list places that also have computers that people can freely access, or include ones that charge also.
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This idea is active.Content/Information Architecture »
RAW DATA
Follow & conform with Linked Data W3C Project. Wikipedia paraphrasing 4 principles of Linked Data Tim Berners-Lee memo: * Use URIs to identify things that you expose to the Web as resources. * Use HTTP URIs so that people can locate and look up (dereference) these things. * Provide useful information about the resource when its URI is dereferenced. * Include links to other, related URIs in the exposed data as a means ...more »
Add your comment for Idea: RAW DATAFollow & conform with Linked Data W3C Project.
Wikipedia paraphrasing 4 principles of Linked Data Tim Berners-Lee memo:
* Use URIs to identify things that you expose to the Web as resources.
* Use HTTP URIs so that people can locate and look up (dereference) these things.
* Provide useful information about the resource when its URI is dereferenced.
* Include links to other, related URIs in the exposed data as a means of improving information discovery on the Web."
A few sites to review:
http://bit.ly/86rKQ (Berners-Lee TED pitch)
http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
"Linked data is essential to actually connect the semantic web. It is quite easy to do with a little thought, and becomes second nature. Various common sense considerations determine when to make a link and when not to."
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Demographics data compilations
1 comment for Idea: Demographics data compilationsproperty statistics compilations. ie- given an address: returns home values/comps,historical crime data, ethnic diversity, rental rates, school data, avg util rates with historical trend comparisons
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Direct voting on all city decisions
Add your comment for Idea: Direct voting on all city decisionsPeople should be able to participate in all city decisions from draft proposals through decision making
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Subproject: Data Curation Project
On Saturday morning, May 16th, 2009, the City hosted a meeting soliciting input from the community as they re-ignite the CoA website redesign project. It became clear that the technical staff who will be responsible for implementation of the CoA website are enthusiastic fans of making as many data feeds available as possible. However, they are also privy to the realities of the heterogenous and often legacy computing ...more »
1 comment for Idea: Subproject: Data Curation ProjectOn Saturday morning, May 16th, 2009, the City hosted a meeting soliciting input from the community as they re-ignite the CoA website redesign project. It became clear that the technical staff who will be responsible for implementation of the CoA website are enthusiastic fans of making as many data feeds available as possible. However, they are also privy to the realities of the heterogenous and often legacy computing infrastructures loosely federated across City departments. It became clear that while we can request machine-consumable data feeds or simply downloadable exports on the website, the fundamental data sources will generally require custom development to generate those feeds.
I propose that as part of the City website redesign project, a subproject be initiated to develop the data feeds that will be necessary to supply the website itself and 3rd parties with source data. It was suggested in the meeting that we target a list of "low-hanging fruit" or data sources that could be easily made web-consumable (such as APD police reports which are already available via web interface [ https://www.ci.austin.tx.us/police/reports/index.cfm ] ); perhaps we could offer suggestions of other data sources to target in the comments here?
I'd also like to re-iterate the observation made in the meeting that this is not a request for the build out of fully functional APIs for each data source; simply generating CSV exports will necessitate the evaluation of what data the City already HAS available, and help begin the process of developing roadmaps to feed this data into the website and out to 3rd parties.
(This idea documents discussions that emerged from the above stated meeting, and rarely are the ideas mine.)
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Use Drupal
3 comments for Idea: Use DrupalUse Drupal: http://drupal.org/
It's simple.
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"Just Moved Here?" Section
4 comments for Idea: "Just Moved Here?" SectionThe City of Austin Web Site should have a "Just Moved Here?" section for new residents.
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Quick access to Civic Services Providers
3 comments for Idea: Quick access to Civic Services ProvidersI would like to enter my zip code and get the following list:
1. my official post office : website, [contact]
2. my official fire station: website, [contact]
3. my official police station : website, [contact]
4. my official user group/neighborhood association: website, [contact]
5. (elec, water, gas) utilities: website, [contact]
6. Trash collection, pickup: website, [contact]
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Socially Organized Meta-Information Portal
Clearly, the CoA website needs to provide access to information and services sourced by CoA. However, there is no need to replicate information that is available elsewhere. The CoA website should serve as a centralized portal, aggregator, rebroadcaster & directory of information sources (not specific external content). Owners of the information sources should be able to self-register. CoA users should be able to tag, ...more »
1 comment for Idea: Socially Organized Meta-Information PortalClearly, the CoA website needs to provide access to information and services sourced by CoA. However, there is no need to replicate information that is available elsewhere. The CoA website should serve as a centralized portal, aggregator, rebroadcaster & directory of information sources (not specific external content). Owners of the information sources should be able to self-register. CoA users should be able to tag, rate and otherwise socially influence the organization of the portal.
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City Council Meeting Minutes, Video, Audio available next day
1 comment for Idea: City Council Meeting Minutes, Video, Audio available next dayMeeting minutes as well as audio and video of all city council meeting should be available on the city website, as well as RSS feeds of the minutes and podcasts of the audio. This would encourage more active participation in city politics from citizens who cannot make it in person to the meetings.
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Live Music Listings
Add your comment for Idea: Live Music ListingsA better live-music search. Use Turn2Live (turn2live.com) as an event feeder and event manager. They will have the fully fleshed out version of the site within 2 months. Not to mention, COA doesn't need to spend $45-$60K on maintenance for their live-music portal.
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Primary Contractor Required by RFP
Add your comment for Idea: Primary Contractor Required by RFPIteresting concept, but the City will have to get a bid from a Primary Vendor that meets the requirements of the RFP.
I have a campaign going on http://meterthis.net/coawebsite to track progress.
Good luck on your process here.
@jmacofearth
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Provide Open API to government data
4 comments for Idea: Provide Open API to government dataProvide an open, documented API to all data contained in the site. This will allow others to include that data in applications and mashups. Ideally it should be a RESTful interface
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Every "event" in RSS
1 comment for Idea: Every "event" in RSSBe it calendars, civic meetings, city council meetings, etc.. the data, the minutes, everything published as an RSS feed. Well structured so it can be used by a blog or an application
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This idea is active.Content/Information Architecture »
Machine-readable data feeds
5 comments for Idea: Machine-readable data feedsI want machine-readable data on everything the city does: crime stats, business permit applications, restaurant inspections, and the like. In short, I desperately want EveryBlock (everyblock.com) for Austin.
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Some Basic Simplification
3 comments for Idea: Some Basic SimplificationThere are 42 items listed in the City of Austin menu bar. That needs to be simplified/categorized.