Municipal Online Services Wishlist?

RaisinBread asks: "I may have an opportunity in the future to work for a decent-sized city. As such, I will likely work there for a short time to see how I fit before taking the job. After speaking to the City Manager about possibilities, he wondered what ideas I might have for potential projects. I have my own ideas, however I'd like to poll Slashdot on the following issue: What is on your wishlist for services you wish your own city would offer online? What existing services do you like or dislike?"

Comments

Re:Online Tax/Property Search

[op00to]

Contact your local Metropolitan Planning Organization for information on transportation projects. These organizations are designated by congress to distribute federal highway funds for local projects. They are required by law to provide public information and foster public involvement. I went ahead, and found the one for your area:
http://www.miwats.org/
Give 'em a ring. They're usually very nice.

Virginia DMV

[psychosis]

The Virginia DMV site is excellent (http://www.dmv.state.va.us). Since VA has about 250 license plates (no exaggeration!), you can order them all online, including a preview of personalized plates. Also, license renewals, car registrations, tax payments, etc. can all be accomplished online (in firefox!) without trouble.
This is critical for us, because the wait at the DMV is usually 4-6 hours, even when you get there before opening.
The overall VA DOT site also has good info line which direction the HOV (express/commuter) lanes are going at any given time, and that info is in a fairly plain-html format that comes in handy when you want to load that information on a handheld.

Re:Complete City Council Agendas

[bmsleight]

Online forms for bad street and traffic lights, sprinklers, etc with followup tracking.

You can do this in London, UK using the street faults form

Commuter information - mass transit and parking

[SgtChaireBourne]

Actually, two other forms of commuter information would be easier to manage that pulling data from the traffic sensors, though that would be good to have too, for some.

One would be time tables for commuter transport or, better, a route planner showing which buses and trains will get you from one address to another.

Another, would be to show parking lot status. This might be harder politically, if the city has balkanized its parking managment. But the idea would be to have information about how many empty spaces are left in each lot. Some cities, again like Copenhagen, have real time displays at key intersections so that drivers don't waste time, money and fuel while hunting for parking. Furthermore, getting cars off the road decreases the severity of traffic jams and reduces the number of cars idling in gridlock thus reducing photochemical smog and improving health ($$$) and quality of life.

You could take either one of the above a step or two further and offer an SMS service where, once a day at a time chosen by the subscriber, a message regarding the delay status of a certain route or the parking lot status be sent.