6/3/09
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This is exactly what we need to start filling in our own potholes!
A new concrete that can heal its own wounds may soon bring futuristic protection to bridges and roads.
Traditional concrete is brittle and is easily fractured during an earthquake or by overuse. By contrast, the new concrete composite can bend into a U-shape without breaking. When strained, the material forms hairline cracks, which auto-seal after a few days of light rain. Read more.
Posted by Kara Andrade on 06/03/09 6/2/09
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Check this out, someone just told me about this service SF 311 Twitter service:
Twitter is a popular and free social messaging utility that allows you to send messages (up to 140 characters) via SMS, IM, the website, and third-party applications. By clicking on the above button, you will be establishing a two-way communication channel which can be used to send direct (private) messages to SF311. Customer Service Representatives are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to assist you. View "Sample Tweets" of our most requested services to help ensure you provide the information needed to service your request. 311 can help with:
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Street Cleaning
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Graffiti Removal
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Pothole and Sidewalk Defects
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Abandoned Vehicles
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City Garbage Can Maintenance
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Department Information (office hours, location, phone numbers)
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... and much more!
Have a question or concern? Check out the FAQ before continuing.
If you're not already using Twitter, you'll need to sign up for an account.
The "Twitter" service is a third party application and the City and County of San Francisco cannot guarantee its availability or its response time. You will receive a Direct Message from 311 with either your Service Request number, the answer to your question, or a request for more information from us.
Posted by Kara Andrade on 06/02/09 5/22/09
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This Saturday a few hardcore Oakland residents and Spot.Us community members braved the rain to hunt for potholes.
I often say that there is no better way to learn a city than biking around it. It’s faster than walking, but lets you feel the environment. And when you are searching for potholes – you need to feel the road.
The goal was to populate a map of Oakland with problem spots using See Click Fix. This map will be coupled with an Oakland Tribune story that the Spot.Us community has helped to support. When this story is published (later this month) it will be participatory on two fundamental levels. Some community members donated money to finance the piece and others donated time to help report the story.
Our reporter Sean Maher is working on the piece now.
Along my bike ride I found the mother of all potholes! As I was jotting down the location a man noticed my admiration of the dangerous ditch and said he saw a car bust its wheel on it only yesterday.
This is a perfect example of how journalism can be participatory in several ways. People often say that Spot.Us is \”citizen journalism.\” I personally am not a fan of the term but I do greatly believe in participatory journalism – that the public should be a part of informing each other and ourselves. In some cases that means collecting our fiscal resources to hire a journalist to act as a representative. That is what we\’ve done with Sean Maher who is doing research on the fate of Oakland Streets. But in other cases it means donating time – as is the case with our Oakland bike ride.
When Spot.Us first put up the map there were only three or four potholes reported. Then we started promoting the \”We Hella Hate Potholes\” bike event with the video below.
Even just promoting the event reports starting trickling in. Just before the bike event there was just over a dozen pothole reports.
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And after our pothole search.
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More pictures below.
The following is the written experience of one of our volunteer bike riders!
…It was a lot of fun, getting lost in Oakland searching for potholes, eventually coming upon a street I recognized and re-orienting myself from there, waving hello to kids that I passed playing on the street as they made good use of their Saturday. For me, it wasn\’t just an event to help drivers and bikers in Oakland, but was also something that energized my soul as I gave back to my community, while being and interacting with it.
…The most pothole-ridden areas we came across several times were intersections. One could not cross the street without falling into several potholes, some 6-8 inches deep.I also noticed that while looking for potholes was a worthwhile activity – and something I might do in my leisure time – fixing potholes won\’t magically make the streets of Oakland biker-friendly. There were a lot of streets that didn\’t have large potholes to be filled in, but were so broken up that my jaw shivered and teeth rattled as I traveled them. Those I didn\’t mark, but would love to see if there\’s a map out there marking streets that haven\’t been repaved in 40-80 years. It could be cool to have an city-wide map marking different levels of Oakland street severity that citizens could mark up.
Posted by Spot. Us on 05/22/09 5/13/09
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I like connecting disparate points or dots that seem in the most logical way to be connected, but are not. This is exactly what happened today when a Spot.Us reporter, Kwan Booth, sent over this press release:
MEDIA Advisory – For Immediate
Bruce Saunders
Public Works Assistant Director
615-5565
Public Works Agency Kicks Off Its Second Pothole Blitz of the Year!
Oakland, CA — The City of Oakland is stepping up its efforts to keep the City traffic safe and respond to pothole complaints. The Public Works Agency crews will kick off its second Pothole Blitz this week and which continues through next week. An additional three weeks of Blitz’s are planned through June. In order to make a tangible impact, Public Works crews are focusing in a different geographical service area for each Blitz.
“I am encouraged by the success of this hands-on campaign to address a major quality of life issue in our City,” said Mayor Dellums. “Through this effort, I am confident we will continue to confront the issue of potholes, further limiting the damage to our roads, our neighborhoods and our vehicles.”
On Wednesday, May 13, 2009, at 10:00 a.m., a photo/video opportunity will be available at 12th Street and Jackson. Work will then continue through next week throughout Zone 1 which generally includes the area of Oakland, West of Lakeside Drive/Harrison Street to the Berkeley city limit. Crews will repair an estimated 1,300 potholes.
“The winter rains created potholes in streets all over the City. The Pothole Blitz will make for a much safer ride for bicyclists and a smoother ride for other vehicles,” said Councilmember Patricia Kernighan, District 2.
“This is an innovative strategy to focus our limited resources to alleviate a large problem,” said Public Works Agency Director, Raul Godinez II. “But it’s a problem that will continue to grow until we can secure capital funding to resurface our streets more often.”
What: Pothole Blitz Photo/Video Opportunity – Interviews Available Upon Request
Who: Public Works Agency Crews
When: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.
Where: Intersection of Jackson and 12th Streets
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I was curious, so instead of just blogging it right away I called Bruce Saunders, Public Works Assistant Director, who is listed in this press release. It was about 5 pm, so I was making a call to an empty office, but I was going to try anyway because I was curious about whether he knew about our “Oakland streets face dire future without change” (doubtful) or our “We Hella Hate Potholes” bike ride. When he answered it was nope and nope. Not surprising. But then I asked him if he had the reported pothole information from The Oakland Tribune map or even SeeClickFix and he said he had never seen these sites. I guided him through both Web sites and he was completely taken aback, both in awe and simple surprise, that this information was out there. “Wow, we could really use this,” Saunders said. “I will make sure to talk to my supervisor about this and we will most definitely be in contact and bring you into the process.” I told him I was happy to help him in any way that we could. For a moment the light went off in my head and I smiled to myself, “yes, this is journalism.” Helping city institutions to connect to information and tools different communities are using to organize themselves around civic issues is in fact journalism.
Posted by Kara Andrade on 05/13/09 4/7/09
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When: Saturday May 2nd - 11:00am, bikes start their mission at 11:30am.
Where: Fruitvale Bart Station: Look for the group of people with bikes outside the station 
What: Bring your bike (or your walking shoes). A pad of paper and a pen. We will disperse to search for potholes and jot down their locations. Also possible to do via cell phone.
The goal: To populate this map with as many potholes as possible.
Why: Biking for good. If we can find the potholes - we can present this with an Oakland Tribune article in the making, giving it more context and potentially having a bigger impact. Who knows, maybe even some positive action will come on behalf of the city in reaction?
RSVP: Facebook or Upcoming. Or click “join the reporting team” on the pitch.
If you can’t spare a Saturday - maybe you can spare $10 to help the reporting. We need six more people to donate $10 each!
So pump up your bicycle wheels (skateboards, rollerblades and those wheel’d shoes all the kids have also accepted).
Contact info at spot.us for details
Posted by Spot. Us on 04/07/09 4/3/09
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For those that don't understand the neccesity for this pitch all you have to do is listen to the stories of folks who live in Oakland. They can tell you just how important it is. For some it seems like an issue of life and death.
Posted by Spot. Us on 04/03/09 3/18/09
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This is an example of a SeeClickFix map in Oakland.
SeeClickFix allows anyone to document and report non-emergency issues to those accountable for the public space.
A user has already created a watch area for the city of Oakland call center so all issues reported on this map will be sent via email to the city.
Click on the map and try it out. Or check out a larger version at InsideBayArea
I filtered the map by the keyword "pothole" so that other issues in the Oakland area do not display. If you know of potholes - add them to our watch list so we know about them.
Posted by Ben Berkowitz on 03/18/09 3/17/09
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The Bay Area has the nation's second worst road and highway conditions, after the Los Angeles area, according to a report released Wednesday by a Washington-based transportation research group.
Read more.
Posted by Spot. Us on 03/17/09 3/16/09
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There is a good chance the Bay area will ge $119 million to repair old roads.
Hopefully Oakland roads would be high on the priority list. But the problem can't be solved simply by throwing money at it.
As Sean notes in the pitch:
A lot of money is potentially coming into the city for this problem very soon and the people need to know what the city's plans are for that money. Because this is a gradual problem and not an immediate, event-based issue like crime or scandal, news media outlets largely ignore it and politicians don't openly discuss it.
But for Oakland drivers and transit riders, this has a big impact on their budgets, and needs a full public discussion, one that my reporting can hopefully spark and inform.
We know something must be done. That isn't the issue - the question is how and by who. To keep the process accountable we need to shed light on it.
Posted by Spot. Us on 03/16/09
