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This matches my experiences in Chicago. A FOIA request got me all of Chicago's parking ticket data from Jan 2009 to March 2016 and I did some quick awk commands

by bpchaps 10y ago

This matches my experiences in Chicago. A FOIA request got me all of Chicago's parking ticket data from Jan 2009 to March 2016 and I did some quick awk commands to find the most ticketed spots. I found some pretty interesting ones and even went to one of the spots to figure out why so many tickets happen in these spots - it's mostly just from signage issues and bad parking meters that let you pay after parking hours. In particular, a three car-length spot received 2.2 million dollars and a LOT of tows. I called and emailed the alderman office that would handle that spot and got zero results. Tried contacting media outlets, etc, but nobody wants to help out in fixing the spot. Hell, I even posted on reddit and got downvoted for "trying to help dumb people". It's incredibly frustrating that it's seemingly impossible to get anything done in any large city as an individual who just wants to help out.

dredmorbius 10y ago
I seem to recall a news story similar to this out of Chicago in the past year or so. Hot spots for fines and stuff. Keep kicking that story around, someone will eventually pick up on it.
dpweb 10y ago
This is interesting. Maybe blog on this and some media may pick it up? Getting it into the local Chicago media would get some attention from officials.
- bpchaps 10y ago
  I'm going to take a long break from this project, I think. Working with the data has been fun and all and has probably been the biggest learning experience of anything I've ever done... but doing it all on my own has been pretty stressful, especially after trying really, really hard to get some attention through conventional ways. It's really disheartening to have next to zero traction from the city and the local "open gov hack" groups. Many journalists and tech folks who want to help out have their own goals, but I've been finding more and more that their goals are (at the risk of the obvious) largely attention seeking, so "unsexy" stories don't get much attention. It's a very strange dynamic where so many folk are interested in visualization of data over actually solving problems. I really don't get it. Taking a break from this sort of work will be nice.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Sex the story up, and get some graphics. Having a random Internet guy make a Sankey diagram to show G+ user numbers helped the hell in promoting that story. https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq If you're on Reddit, drop a request at /r/MKaTS
jhull 10y ago
Can you share this data?
- bpchaps 10y ago
  Sure - Raw: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIiVmNiUzVPZ1JfX0k https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIiVmNiUzVPZ1JfX0... Mostly cleaned up (ignore the file name :p ): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIia0J3RGVyd0tka2s https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIia0J3RGVyd0tka2...

by bpchaps 10y ago

dredmorbius 10y ago

I seem to recall a news story similar to this out of Chicago in the past year or so. Hot spots for fines and stuff. Keep kicking that story around, someone will eventually pick up on it.

dpweb 10y ago

This is interesting. Maybe blog on this and some media may pick it up? Getting it into the local Chicago media would get some attention from officials.

bpchaps 10y ago
I'm going to take a long break from this project, I think. Working with the data has been fun and all and has probably been the biggest learning experience of anything I've ever done... but doing it all on my own has been pretty stressful, especially after trying really, really hard to get some attention through conventional ways. It's really disheartening to have next to zero traction from the city and the local "open gov hack" groups. Many journalists and tech folks who want to help out have their own goals, but I've been finding more and more that their goals are (at the risk of the obvious) largely attention seeking, so "unsexy" stories don't get much attention. It's a very strange dynamic where so many folk are interested in visualization of data over actually solving problems. I really don't get it. Taking a break from this sort of work will be nice.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Sex the story up, and get some graphics. Having a random Internet guy make a Sankey diagram to show G+ user numbers helped the hell in promoting that story. https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq If you're on Reddit, drop a request at /r/MKaTS

jhull 10y ago

Can you share this data?

bpchaps 10y ago
Sure - Raw: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIiVmNiUzVPZ1JfX0k https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIiVmNiUzVPZ1JfX0... Mostly cleaned up (ignore the file name :p ): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIia0J3RGVyd0tka2s https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8w4PnXvOPIia0J3RGVyd0tka2...