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posted by martyb on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the Your-honor,-there-was-a-tree-branch-blocking-the-sign! dept.

Utilizing FOIA and some clever software Mr. Chapman quickly identifies a troubled spot for parking in Chicago and gets results!

http://mchap.io/using-foia-data-and-unix-to-halve-major-source-of-parking-tickets.html

The story relates how the author used Freedom of Information Act requests to gather raw data on parking tickets issued in Chicago. What he received was a semicolon-delimited text file containing a great number of data entry errors. The author outlines the steps taken to clean and extract data on a likely problematic parking location. Armed with this data, he visited the location and discovered very confusing signage. He reported this to the city, who rectified the signage. This led to a 50 percent decrease in the number of tickets issued for that location.

I immediately asked myself three things

1. How much more effective has that corner become?
2. Who's grumbling about the loss of revenue?
3. What would happen if more of us did this very thing?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:57PM (10 children)

    by Unixnut (5779) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:57PM (#721754)

    > There is certainly someone responsible in city government for doing this work. They just are not doing it.

    Because if they actually did it like this guy did, they would be fired.

    You think a 50% reduction in income would make your superiors happy? Quite frankly you would be more successful in government if you found a way to increase ticket revenue (without making it blatant to the public). You would increase the income of your department, plus the actual enforcement department could demand a higher budget due to the increase in violations. Everybody wins (except the public, but that is by design).

    The only reason they fixed this is because when faced with a member of the public, newspapers, and the facts, they could not weasel their way out of it, nor could they just put it under "recommendation" and forget about it. I suspect they will be worried that now this has been found out, other such "profit spots" will be discovered by the public, and before you know it, their overall income will drop.

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  • (Score: 2) by infodragon on Wednesday August 15 2018, @01:29PM (2 children)

    by infodragon (3509) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @01:29PM (#721764)

    And that is why I have point #2! Grumbling in the government due to loss of revenue often leads to someone being punished or fired. Power has to be used and protected!

    From the article it was about $60k/year reduction in revenue. That is a LOT of money someone is no longer pocketing.

    --
    Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:38PM (#721786)

      Chicago sold off its parking space to private interests for 50 years. If ticket revenue is no longer going to the city, they have no more interest in confusing signage.

      • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:45PM

        by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:45PM (#721794)

        If the confusing signage is impacting residents, they may well vote the people allowing such a situation out.

        Also, more subtle effects, like in my township, there was a confusingly labeled no-parking spot near a corner. This caused the garbage truck not to be able to get on to the street, meaning garbage could not be collected if someone parked on the corner.

        A complaint to the township resulted in a new sign and yellow paint that makes it quite clear. Additionally they stepped up towing people that parked illegally, and enforced the ban on unregistered and undriveable vehicles stored on public streets.

        --
        "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:00PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:00PM (#721773)

    You think a 50% reduction in income would make your superiors happy? Quite frankly you would be more successful in government if you found a way to increase ticket revenue (without making it blatant to the public).

    I expect people who rant at how evil the government is don't actually know anybody who works in the government. I do. As a general rule, they are good people who are trying to do the right thing. Do you think on average the post office employees are thinking "if we intentionally misdeliver mail, we can ask for a bigger budget," or that teachers are thinking "I should call in extra sick days, because I can!" Of course there are bad apples, and there are occasional massive conspiracies, but they are the exception, rather than the rule. Why do you think that the Chicago Department of Transportation would punish a civil servant who is making the system work better.

    I get really annoyed at the commonly accepted cynical view that "government is the problem." More likely there was an opportunity for improvement here, it was brought to the attention of the Department of Transportation in a credible way, and it was acted upon to improve the lives of all the citizens. It's just like reporting pot holes, or street lights being burned out. There is bureaucratic red tape to get the right person informed, but that's because government is complicated (like any large corporation), not by design.

    You might try reporting "that annoying stop light which is always out of sync with the rest of the street and causing traffic nightmares" one of these days. You may be surprised when the local civil planners actually respond.

    You would increase the income of your department, plus the actual enforcement department could demand a higher budget due to the increase in violations.

    This is a valid argument, except it isn't true. Different departments have different budgets. It is way oversimplified to think of it all as "the government." For example, do you know how much the members of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dislike the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)? Why would the Department of Transportation would engage in such dangerous actions to benefit the Police and the Court?

    The main times you see this kind of mustache-twirling abuse is at a higher level than departments, such as the city council installing red light cameras because it increases the overall general budget to the city. That's way above the level of a civil servant and a manager.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:56PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:56PM (#721800)

      > It's just like reporting pot holes,

      This. I report pot holes in my vicinity, in particular ones along the edge of the road where I bicycle. When they get fixed (usually a week or two, weather depending), I send a short "thanks" email to the guy I've found at the Department of Transportation.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:29PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:29PM (#721895)

        This kind of action is particularly effective, especially the thank you note.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:58PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:58PM (#721962) Journal

      > The main times you see this kind of mustache-twirling abuse is at a higher level than departments, such as the city council installing red light cameras

      That does a lot of damage to their reputation. If that was the only bit of corruption going on, it wouldn't be so bad. But some city governments seem determined to find out how many scams they can pull, and how far they can push the voters. We had a mayor who was a decent fellow until he got into a shady deal to build the world's tallest building in our humble community of about 50,000. He made a cool million flipping the land where the building was to go, and lost the next election. His replacement was a religious zealot who, with her fellow zealots, went on a moral crusade to run all the liquor stores out of town, using every trick they could, not caring about the legality. Cost the city plenty in lost revenue and lost lawsuits. She lasted only one term, then her replacement was another one termer, a heavy drug user with serious kidney problems and a drug dealer husband. She was absent much of her term due to her illnesses, or so we were given to believe.

      > I get really annoyed at the commonly accepted cynical view that "government is the problem."

      You'll just have to accept a constant low level of suspicion and distrust. Corruption is the problem, power corrupts, and government has a lot of power.

      I wish the high level stuff was all, but there are plenty of petty officials who seem to delight in throwing bureaucratic obstacles in people's way.

      By now, I expect nearly everyone has heard dozens of stories of police abuse of power-- their profiling and racism, and their escalation of situations particularly against the mentally ill.

      However, government tone and manner can be the worst problem. When they act cynical towards citizens, treat citizens like we're a bunch of takers and helpless losers, with finger wagging at us for breaking petty rules as if we're naughty little children-- all the more infuriating when those rules are bullcrap rules designed to line someone's pockets in the name of safety or whatever-- when they take that attitude, they're going to get it right back at them. They rob us of dignity.

      Departments whose entire mission is enforcing some petty rules can be a huge problem. They're staffed by people who know they'll be out of a job if there isn't any enforcing to be done. A good example of this is lawn care. The city had a few restaurants dish out some food poisoning. There is a state agency that handles restaurant inspections, but the city decided to start up their own health inspection department. So far, I know of one restaurant that for months regularly served spoiled food that poisoned people. They were not stopped by the city's health inspection, they went out of business. The city also has a group that inspects homes when they are sold.

      All of these enforcement actions are done in a punitive manner, as if it is a given that the owner knew all about the rules and was deliberately flouting them. Instead of helping citizens comply with reasonable regulations, citizens are treated as if they're criminals who got caught trying to break the rules, and fined out the wazoo.

      The typical lawn care violation for letting your grass get too tall is a case in point. It is loaded with assumptions that tall grass is a "nuisance" which attracts undesirable "vermin", and that "we take pride on our city's appearance" and you are a dirty rotten deadbeat who doesn't care about your neighbors' property values. I found the notice highly offensive, and I let the city officials have it for having dared to talk to citizens in such an insulting and belittling manner. And I voted against all the incumbents in the next election. Also, checking the regulations, I found several discrepancies in which the letter omitted various mitigating circumstances. It was so obviously written to scare and bully the recipient. Stupid to make enemies of their own citizens with such ham handed treatment.

  • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:41PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @02:41PM (#721790)

    The person who designs where to put parking signs is not paid by the revenue of parking tickets.

    Otherwise that would be a bit of a conflict of interest.

    They are probably just a general civil engineer on the municipality's staff, or a contractor in places with no need for a full time engineer.

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:52PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday August 15 2018, @03:52PM (#721828)

    other such "profit spots" will be discovered by the public

    They can always switch to speed traps, those never fail to produce revenue.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by easyTree on Thursday August 16 2018, @07:06AM

    by easyTree (6882) on Thursday August 16 2018, @07:06AM (#722078)

    In Manchester, UK - the local council has made 'badly signed' access changes to the main bus route resulting in fines of £9M ($11.5M) in six months!

    For example there are T-junctions where you are fined if you turn left OR right, right next to a major hospital.

    They've shown no reluctance to weasel out of their responsibilities to the public.

    https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/oxford-road-bus-lane-fines-14326548 [manchestereveningnews.co.uk]