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How Open Government Data Saved New Yorkers Thousands On Parking Tickets
jfruh (300774) writes "Ben Wellington is a New Yorker and city planner with an interest in NYC Open Data, the city's online open government initiative. One thing he noticed in this vast dataset was that just two fire hydrants in the city generated tens of thousands of dollars a year in tickets. The sleuthing by which he figured out why is a great example of how open government data can help citizens in concrete ways."
There have been some detractors along the way; a senior attorney for the NYPD said in 2012 during a council hearing that releasing NYPD data in csv format was a problem because they were “concerned with the integrity of the data itself” and because “data could be manipulated by people who want ‘to make a point’ of some sort”.
...this would be resolved. It's clear from the first picture there's two competing rules. It's marked by the city as valid parking, but there's a fire hydrant. Which law supersedes the other? Probably the fire hydrant law, but a decent judge would have understood how the mistake was made and would throw out the ticket. If the city paid attention, they'd know to fix the space so as not to waste their meter maid's time.
But nobody bothers to fight their tickets anymore. If you receive one that makes 100% sense, go ahead and eat it, but when there's some doubt, like this, fight it!
You could also paint your fire hydrants fire engine red or bright green so people would notice them instead of the blackish brown in street view. But seriously, if you have a hydrant on the sidewalk, you should have some sort of marking in the space saying its illegal rather than the standard markings.
There was a fire hydrant on the sidewalk, with a bike lane between it and drawn parking spaces. In US cities you can only park where there is a parking space explicitly drawn, so this spot had exactly what you were looking for and people parked. And got ticketed. And this happened all the time, since it looked like a perfectly fine parking spot, but the NYPD disagreed. Apparently no-one had complained loud enough (I'd think such tickets would be very easily contested), but when this guy blogged about it after seeing the data and it went viral, the DOT fixed it relatively quickly by marking it as a no-parking space.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Why is he left wondering why the DOT didn't analyze the parking ticket data? BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE TO. DOT and their associated fines act as the Executive, as opposed to the Legislative or Judicial Branches.
It's trendy to consider society as a single organism in which everyone works for an optimal outcome, but the approach is flawed. The DOT is not in the business of analyzing which parking areas generate the most money, if anything, they should be in the business of optimizing the parking areas which make the LEAST money.
+1 for geekiness and making the data accessible, but righteous indignation is really out of place and show a remarkable degree of insulation from the real world.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I thought people take the subway or the taxi. I didn't see any parking lots or garages in New York City / Manhattan. I didn't see any cars parked along the curb. I must be missing something.
Glasses, I assume.
How NYC has to increase taxes because of "increased costs" of Open Data, which will amount to about 60-100k a year...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Hacker arrested for stealing $57,000 from NYPD"
"After breaking into government computers and accessing unauthorized data, in much the same way that Aaron Swartz and Andrew Auernheimer did before him, notorious terrorist Ben Wellington manipulated government records to steal over fifty thousand dollars directly from the people of New York City. In the interests of protecting freedom and democracy, SWAT teams arrived at the homes of Wellington, who hides behind the non-de-crime of "I (redacted) NY", along with members of his immediate family and his dog who was shot while trying to resist arrest.
"The criminal mastermind is being held without trial in a secure, undisclosed location and has been denied access to telecommunications equipment for fear that he might use a pay phone to break into the Pentagon and whistle the correct codes to launch nuclear missiles at Mayor Bloomberg."
"The Attorney General's office then went on to congratulate itself for protecting freedom everywhere, and urged everyone to enjoy their new twenty gramme chocolate ration."
...how the city most likely deliberately ignored the parking issue because they were bringing in so much money. There is no doubt that they knew what was happening and made a conscious decision to leave things as they were.
Government at all levels have become adversarial as those who are employed by it seek to protect their revenue stream at all costs.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
New York City is far from broke. It's one of the most taxed cities in the country. In fact it's the highest.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
It reminds me of an acquaintance who claimed to have worked at a red light camera company, where he bragged about at random times, the traffic signal light could flash red just for 50-100 ms, snap a picture, then change back to green. That way, they could keep the flow of red light camera tickets going but without being caught on driver dash cams with extremely short (or no) yellow lights.
Probably the best way tourists can fight back is to blacklist towns doing those shenanigans, but with larger cities like NYC, that can't really be done.
The best way to fight back is to blacklist everybody who has ever been employed by a red light camera company.
Use LinkedIn to track them down, create a public website where you name and shame them.
If you can find out where they live, confront them at their houses in front of their families and neighbors.
Until there's a social cost which makes acting like an amoral mercenary unprofitable, the number of amoral mercenaries will continue to increase.
You have to be careful here. You create an incentive for people to bring false charges against someone else.
Property should not be seizable unless as a punishment from the judge and it should go to general government. If I commit a crime, my property's not involved.