SDOT’s Find It, Fix It app is surprisingly powerful. You can report a pothole or broken walk signal or broken bicycle detector and SDOT crews will look into the issue as part of their regular maintenance process. Sometimes, you get results within days. Sometimes, especially if the problem is extensive, it does not get fixed, but it’s always worth a try. However, until recently, there hasn’t been an obvious way to report issues with bike lanes, bike racks or other bike-specific infrastructure. You could still report them under some other category (perhaps that pavement crack counts as a pothole?), but sometimes it just was not obvious whether your issue was reportable.
After some persistent bugging from the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board among others, SDOT recently updated the app to make it easier to accept work orders for bike facility needs. The change comes just a month before the voter-approved Seattle Transportation Levy kicks in, which will increase the department’s bike facility maintenance budget.
Find It, Fix It is the branding for the department’s work order tracking system. Longtime residents may remember the previous branding 684-ROAD, which still works if you prefer to file reports via phone call. It’s the same idea. The city has a maintenance budget, but they can’t possibly know about every location that needs work. So you can help by reporting it, and as a reward they city will fix it if it is within the scope of regular maintenance (for example, they might fill a pothole or crack, but probably won’t repave a whole roadway section).
So do your fellow bike riders a favor and start filing reports about slippery wet leaves or standing water (use the clogged drain category) or overgrown blackberry. You can also let the city know about damaged bike racks (especially important if they create a theft risk) or if there is a traffic signal that stubbornly refuses to detect your bike, use the traffic signal maintenance category to report it. I’m sure you’re not the only one dealing with these issues, but most people don’t know how to report it. You can be their invisible hero.
After you submit a report, you will be updates on the status of your reports within the app. Someone from the city may even call you to ask follow-up questions if needed, so be prepared to answer a call from a dreaded unknown 206 number.
If you have any Find It, Fix It success stories, share them in the comments below.
More details on the latest updates from the SDOT Blog:
(more…)
