Continuing the driving theme I seem to have established over the past couple of days, the free idea this week is a Pothole Spotter website.
As bits of pavement are thawing here on the frozen tundra, the potholes seem notably worse than in past years. Now, I’m no stranger to potholes, having lived in the upper Midwest my whole life, but some of the ones this year seem pretty exceptional. Perhaps it’s the particular combination of weather this winter, or maybe it’s the result of reduced preventive maintenance on roads with budget cut back, I don’t know. And mind you, I’m not talking about a little bit of pockmarked road acne here, I’m talking about the tire swallowing, axle breaking caverns.
I’ve got a few on my way to work that are so substantial that I’ve modified my usual route by a few blocks to get around them, because I’m worried I’ll end up with a flat tire one of these days if I don’t (again, these are no “just swerve around them” sized pot holes).
From what I’ve seen in past years here in Minneapolis, the city’s way of patching these is to methodically drive up and down every single street on the warm days, starting when it gets up to the 40′s or 50′s, and patch every single divot on a given street, from fist sized hiccup to black hole of death, all at once. Which sort of makes sense in a “it’s the government” kind of way. After all, how would they know where the really bad ones are? Or the ones that the most people drive over in a given day? And really, what are you going to do about it anyway?
Make a Pothole Spotter website. That’s what.
The people who are going to know best where the really bad potholes are are the people who drive through them (or swerve around them) every day. The commuters. So, this week’s idea is to make website where users can submit their favorite / most hated potholes. Ideally, you would set it up so they can send in picture messages of the potholes from their phones, so you can actually see how big / bad they are. The users should also include a description of the location (for example, 31st Street E, about 10 feet west of Stevens Ave, all of the right lane), or maybe a Google Street View link (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Minneapolis,+Hennepin,+Minnesota&ll=44.946643,-93.275565&spn=0,359.997299&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=44.946644,-93.2757&panoid=dtMqU1RZFncbKp_RddLBew&cbp=12,30.94,,0,1.07 – those two close parallel cracks at the end of the white stripe have each opened into tire sized gaps in the pavement).
The commuters would have incentives to use the site, because it could potentially help them get the worst of the potholes they have to deal with fixed quickly. Additionally, you could offer a weekly prize for worst pothole, and let users vote on it. The worst pothole each week would be displayed at the top of the home page. It would strike me that you could get a tire company or an auto shop (especially one that does alignments and tire balancing) or a tow truck company to sponsor the thing, and give related / amusing prizes each week.
Additionally, it would basically publicly shame the cities / street maintenance crews that are in charge of the areas where the potholes reside into fixing them. Or, more positively, help the cities and crews to identify where they can have the greatest effect improving drivers’ experience with the least amount of manpower and resources.
You could also pit cities against each other to introduce a bit of competition to it for both the government officials and the users, and maybe get a bit of press for it in the mean time. “Will Minneapolis or New York have the worst pothole this week?” “Hey, did you see Miami beat us this week?!? They don’t even have winter! We gotta get out and find some big ones!”
Additionally, this would also give the cities a good resource for concrete data (pardon the pun) about which streets have the most issues, which could drive the choices on which ones get priority in replacement, as well as better analysis of layouts / materials that lead to the most / worst potholes. It could also give the ability to track which spots have potholes that reoccur each year, which could lead to analyzing the effectiveness of patches done at different temperatures, at different times, or by different crews. In that way, you even potentially charge the cities a small fee to mine the data, or sell some consulting to analyze the data for them.
People would have smoother commutes, the city would have a greater affect of peoples daily lives with fewer resources, we gather more data to prevent future problems and promote accountability, and have some potential to make some cash on the side. Make it so.