This is why I love email group lists! ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Daniel Morgan" <[email protected]> Date: Mar 4, 2015 3:13 PM Subject: [cfabrigade] Re: Civic app for spurring much-needed infrastructure projects To: <[email protected]> Cc:
Hey David! Thanks for bringing up this very important issue. I'm Dan Morgan, and I'm your US Department of Transportation Chief Data Officer - and boy, do I have data to help you with a project like this! There aren't that many great tools to help the public see the quality of their local infrastructure (or explore what's around them), but we do have a lot of ingredients to help you (and other CfA folks) build something about this. Probably the best way to get acquainted with some map-ready data sets is to visit the National Transportation Atlas Database at http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/2014/index.html. We've got shapefiles for bridges ( http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/2014/zip/nbi.zip), dams ( http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/2014/zip/dams.zip), inland waterway locks ( http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/2014/zip/locks.zip), and highway traffic volume/pavement condition ( http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/2014/zip/hpms.zip) that could probably get you started. We have some tools to help explore summary state-level statistics, but we don't really have products that help you explore more local geographies. We're working on a (very alpha) web-based tool called the National Transportation Atlas Viewer (http://gis.rita.dot.gov/NTA), but it's not ready for prime time by any means. Other advocacy groups help try to tell the story of our infrastructure, like Transportation for America (here's their tool for looking at bridges http://t4america.org/maps-tools/bridges/) and there are government entities out there that are building great products to communicate the local needs, like Chicago's Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) - they have a wonderful resource that describes their region's mobility challenges ( http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/mobility/explore#/). There are other great examples out there, for sure. I'd be glad to collaborate with you and other interested folks on a project like this! Dan Daniel Morgan Chief Data Officer US Department of Transportation o.202.366.4308 m.202.657.3910 On Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 12:33:43 PM UTC-5, David Stiebel wrote: > > Recently watched John Oliver's segment on the looming Infrastructure > problem in the US, and I was curious what CFA-type projects or ideas are > out there to tackle this problem. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8 > (warning: bad language) > > A few questions come to mind: > a) Is their publicly-available data on all these tens of thousands > bridges, dams, etc? (I feel like data on this would be great to map > somehow.) > > b) Is there a way for the public to see the status/quality of their local > infrastructure? (Maybe if people realized the 3 bridges they used every > day had an average grade of D+, or if they realized the dam 20 miles away > was preventing their town from massive floods, they might care more.) > > Two major messages from Oliver's piece that struck me as key to the > problem: > 1) "Infrastructure is not sexy", nor does it resonate with people as > meaningful to their lives > 2) Politicians don't feel the public will support them in raising taxes or > funding for these projects. > > *************************** > I'd like to explore launching a project to inform people about the > infrastructure around them, let them know how critical the problem is, how > infrastructure failures might impact them, and ultimately spur people to > contact their politicians with an encouraging message to fix the problem. > ************************** > > Any thoughts on this? Does anything relevant to this issue exist already? > > David > > > -- If you are having trouble unsubscribing via [email protected], please email [email protected]. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Code for America Brigade" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/a/codeforamerica.org/group/brigade/. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/codeforamerica.org/d/msgid/brigade/885f9367-734a-4d47-a6a9-e27aeb0013e4%40codeforamerica.org <https://groups.google.com/a/codeforamerica.org/d/msgid/brigade/885f9367-734a-4d47-a6a9-e27aeb0013e4%40codeforamerica.org?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/a/codeforamerica.org/d/optout. ―― View topic http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/1YgHCWRNoiC8OD7AKFSgot Leave group mailto:[email protected]?Subject=Unsubscribe
