Comments on: Calls for Action From Milwaukee to Manhattan http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/29/calls-for-action-from-milwaukee-to-manhattan/ Covering the New York City Streets Renaissance Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:07:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dan Knauss http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/29/calls-for-action-from-milwaukee-to-manhattan/comment-page-1/#comment-69093 Dan Knauss Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:48:04 +0000 http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=6269#comment-69093 @Cap'n Transit: you may find that valuable data like that is treated as proprietary and on the level of "trade secrets" by departments of public works when traffic counts are hitched to state funding for municipal road repairs. Pedestrian and transit advocates may find their desire to get more progressive street design inhibited by graft-protecting bureaucrats who will also not like you to get your hands on "their" street data. See for example this recent article on Streetsblog: http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/01/complete-streets-could-hit-a-speed-bump-in-milwaukee/ @Cap’n Transit: you may find that valuable data like that is treated as proprietary and on the level of “trade secrets” by departments of public works when traffic counts are hitched to state funding for municipal road repairs. Pedestrian and transit advocates may find their desire to get more progressive street design inhibited by graft-protecting bureaucrats who will also not like you to get your hands on “their” street data. See for example this recent article on Streetsblog: http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/01/complete-streets-could-hit-a-speed-bump-in-milwaukee/

]]> By: Cap'n Transit http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/29/calls-for-action-from-milwaukee-to-manhattan/comment-page-1/#comment-69075 Cap'n Transit Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:48:41 +0000 http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=6269#comment-69075 Speaking of which, when can we expect NYC DOT data from vehicle and pedestrian counts to be available on the web? Speaking of which, when can we expect NYC DOT data from vehicle and pedestrian counts to be available on the web?

]]> By: Dan Knauss http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/29/calls-for-action-from-milwaukee-to-manhattan/comment-page-1/#comment-69062 Dan Knauss Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:04:50 +0000 http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=6269#comment-69062 I should also have noted the Independent Government Observers' Task Force's (IGOTF) eight principles of open government data: http://resource.org/8_principles.html These principles were hashed out in 2007 by some great minds, including Tim O'Reilly. http://public.resource.org/open_government_meeting.html I should also have noted the Independent Government Observers’ Task Force’s (IGOTF) eight principles of open government data: http://resource.org/8_principles.html These principles were hashed out in 2007 by some great minds, including Tim O’Reilly. http://public.resource.org/open_government_meeting.html

]]> By: Dan Knauss http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/05/29/calls-for-action-from-milwaukee-to-manhattan/comment-page-1/#comment-69056 Dan Knauss Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:46:22 +0000 http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=6269#comment-69056 Many local governments, as in Milwaukee, that do provide some degree of publicly accessible data at the present time will often protest what they are doing now is "good enough" or somehow meets a/their standard of being sufficiently "public." But unless that make their data available as structured data in widely accessible formats, this claim rings hollow. Lacking an open API for external applications to fetch public data, open standards formats for structured data that can be used in many free applications (like XML and KML) should be implemented. One benefit to cities is that a move to open standards makes possible a move to open source applications as well, and this represents millions in potential cost savings. It is likely that, in the near future, federal requirements for data interoperability will mandate XML standards for all levels of government, so holdouts at this point are just putting local entities further behind the curve. See the OpenGeoSpatial Foundation's various white papers on this subject (http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/papers) and especially the Yale Journal of law and Technology 11 (2008-09) "Government Data and the Invisible Hand" (http://www.yjolt.org/11/fall/robinson-160) which opens: "If President Barack Obama’s new administration really wants to embrace the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today, government bodies consider their own Web sites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing Web sites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility." It is clear that decisions related to data infrastructure are being made at the state, county and municipal levels with little to no public discussion or input, and this too is a problem. There must be some alternative models of deliberation and planning on public data infrastructure; perhaps Vancouver holds or will soon hold some models; as yet, I don;t know of any in the US: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/05/22/tech-vancouver-open-source-standards-software-city.html Many local governments, as in Milwaukee, that do provide some degree of publicly accessible data at the present time will often protest what they are doing now is “good enough” or somehow meets a/their standard of being sufficiently “public.” But unless that make their data available as structured data in widely accessible formats, this claim rings hollow.

Lacking an open API for external applications to fetch public data, open standards formats for structured data that can be used in many free applications (like XML and KML) should be implemented. One benefit to cities is that a move to open standards makes possible a move to open source applications as well, and this represents millions in potential cost savings. It is likely that, in the near future, federal requirements for data interoperability will mandate XML standards for all levels of government, so holdouts at this point are just putting local entities further behind the curve.

See the OpenGeoSpatial Foundation’s various white papers on this subject (http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/papers) and especially the Yale Journal of law and Technology 11 (2008-09) “Government Data and the Invisible Hand” (http://www.yjolt.org/11/fall/robinson-160) which opens: “If President Barack Obama’s new administration really wants to embrace the potential of Internet-enabled government transparency, it should follow a counter-intuitive but ultimately compelling strategy: reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today, government bodies consider their own Web sites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing Web sites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility.”

It is clear that decisions related to data infrastructure are being made at the state, county and municipal levels with little to no public discussion or input, and this too is a problem. There must be some alternative models of deliberation and planning on public data infrastructure; perhaps Vancouver holds or will soon hold some models; as yet, I don;t know of any in the US: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/05/22/tech-vancouver-open-source-standards-software-city.html

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