We launched fixmystreet.ca 10 months ago to provide citizens with an easy way to publicly track municipal 311 requests.   In that time, 220 requests have been filed in 6 different cities.  We passed a new milestone last month, when city councilors in Charlottetown PEI began recommending that citizens report problems through fixmystreet.ca.   Councillor Rob Lantz wrote recently about how the site is helping to unify the city’s 311 tracking, saying:

“It’s simple, but provides a level of transparency and accountability that people appreciate.”

Joseph Biggley, a Charlottetown resident*, posted one of the most creative entries we’ve received yet.  His report is a fun example of how the site can work.  Frustrated with the timing of how a walk-light operated, Joseph made video and posted it on YouTube.  He then reported the problem to fixmystreet.ca with a link to the video, and shared it with friends on twitter.  7 people who watched the video subscribed to receive updates on the issue, making it the top-rated issue on the site for Charlottetown.   Joseph received a response from the city in two days.

Some of my other favorite reports from the last year:

FixMyStreet.ca is free to use for both cities and citizens, and is an open source project.  We’re looking for municipal co-ordinators to help us bring fixmystreet.ca to other cities in Canada.  If you’re interested, see here for more information, or contact us directly.

Also, like any crowd-sourced website, fixmystreet.ca is only as useful as the number of people who know about.  If you live in a city listed on fixmystreet.ca, we’d be delighted if you’d help us out by hanging this poster in an appropriate place, such as a university, coffee shop, or grocery store bulletin board.

More statistics on issues reported on FixMyStreet.ca to be posted next week.

* Joseph also gave us a kind mention in a recent article on Open Government in Spacing Atlantic