Predictive Sidewalk Snow Clearance

What problem are you trying to solve?

Every year the City of Buffalo handles anywhere from 1,500 to 13,000+ snow-related 311 requests. These requests typically include street snow plowing requests (most common in 2017-2018 season; focused on streets) and snow removal inspections (second-most common; focused on sidewalks). While street snow plowing requests are referred to the Department of Public Works and resolved relatively quickly, sidewalk clearance requests often result in a violation letter, but may never actually be resolved. There is a cost to the city/taxpayer for every inspection, and a cost to civic trust when sidewalks continue to go uncleared, often in spite of multiple requests.

The problem: based on historical snow-related request data, is it possible to identify areas of the city where a coordinated volunteer or contracted snow removal service could reduce the overall number of snow removal inspection requests, potentially saving the city money in the process?

Who will benefit (directly and indirectly) from your project?

Pedestrians, public transit riders, business owners, taxpayers. The City of Buffalo has one of the highest proportions of carless households in the country.

What other resources/tools are currently serving the same need? How does your project set itself apart?

A smart approach to snow-removal is something of a holy grail in Buffalo. The City of Buffalo does not offer municipal sidewalk clearance as a public service, leaving the duty to both residential and commercial property owners. Even municipalities that do offer these services (Rochester, Montreal) do not have perfect snow removal systems in place. There have been no publicly-facing analytics projects

Where can we find any research/data available/articles?

Best overview (so far) of the intersection of civic tech and sidewalk snow removal: https://www.phillymag.com/citified/2016/02/24/app-unshoveled-sidewalks/

Overview of municipal snow removal in Rochester, NY and other cities: https://reconnectrochester.org/2018/03/sidewalk-snow-removal-monroe-county/

Overview of how large cities handle snow removal (live-tracking snow plows, etc): https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/03/to-fight-snow-storms-bring-out-the-big-data/519525/

In 2015, Boston launched "Snow Stats" to help residents handle snow-related issues: https://www.boston.gov/winter-boston

A NYC-based analysis of snow-related 311 requests: (https://www.villagevoice.com/2016/02/03/which-borough-is-the-worst-at-shoveling-snow-hint-its-the-one-where-the-most-people-live/)

What help do you need now?

Participants interested in getting involved can:

1) take a look at the city's 2017-2018 Snow-Related 311 Requests; https://data.buffalony.gov/Quality-of-Life/Snow-Related-311-Requests-2017-2018-/ajbw-c4a2

2) Conduct a geo-analysis of sidewalk-related issues for 2017-2018, and potentially for previous years

3) Mashup with historical weather data to identify any particular patterns (snowfall depth, temperatures, other conditions) that might help create a machine learning tool that can predict sidewalk-clearance requests.

4) Mashup with property owner data to identify any particular patterns (owner-occupancy, location of owner, age of house, size of house, commercial/residential property, etc) that might help create a machine learning tool that can predict sidewalk-clearance requests.

5) Suggestions of other analyses or datasets that might help the city and its residents proactively address sidewalk clearance issues

What are the next steps (validation, research, coding, design)?

Research and pre-processing are needed in the immediate term

How can we contact you outside of Github(email, social media, etc)?

Get in touch at aaron.krolikowski [@] gmail.com

Project management

Checklist for NEW ideas :baby:

Hey, you're official! You're now part of the growing civic tech community in Buffalo. Here's a few things to get started (a couple you've probably already done).

[x] Create this idea issue
[x] Flesh out the who, where, and what questions above
[ ] Start the conversation about this idea on Slack

Checklist for ACTIVE projects :fire:

Let's get this project started! When this idea starts taking off, the Projects Core Team will start helping this project's lead(s) out with project management and connecting you to resources you may need. To get there, please complete and check off the following:

[x] Post an update at least once a month to this issue. Use BASEDEF for ideas, but it's ok even if your update is just "nothing new happened this month" or "we saw a small increase in traffic to our app this month". If there's no activity for two months, that's no problem, life happens. We'll just label this as backlog so others know you'll get back to it when you have the time. If nobody hears from you at all in more than two months, we may mark it as abandoned so that others can pick up this idea and run with it.
[ ] Take 30 minutes to complete Open Leadership 101
[ ] Create a GitHub repository. Ask for help setting up permissions if you want your repository to be within the Code for Buffalo Github organization.
[ ] Create a README file in your project repository. This file should help newcomers understand what your project is, why it's important, and kinds of help you're looking for.
[ ] Create issues to describe each task that you plan to do or need help with and how a contributor can get started on that task. You might start and stop a lot, so consider issues as your to-do list.
[ ] Create a team for your core contributors
- This will make it easier for you to manage your github repo access. People on a team have the same level of access. Admin access will allow your trusted contributors to make changes as needed.
- You can remove and add people to your team as needed.
- Note: You can also allow collaborators outside of your team and give them more limited access.
[ ] Create a new project channel in Slack so you can "@" your core contributors all at once.
[ ] Create a Google Drive, Dropbox, or other cloud storage to share larger files. Github and Data.World are good for code and data, respectively, especially when you need version control. But they're not good for very large files, documentation, articles, etc. A cloud storage option will allow you to easily share, create, and collaborate on documents with your team and help organize ideas and thoughts.
- Doing this early on can help your team stay organized and to onboard new contributors who wouldn't have access to files you all have shared over email.

Checklist for FEATURED Projects :tada:

To have your project FEATURED on the Code for Buffalo website, complete the following documentation. In past projects, well-documented featured projects have more contributions than other projects.

[ ] In your README, link to the Code for Buffalo Code of Conduct or write your own code of conduct.
[ ] Create file: LICENSE to give your project an open license, allowing for sharing and remixing.
[ ] Create file: CONTRIBUTING.md so others know how they can contribute.
[ ] Create an easily shareable project management artifact, like a Civic Tech Canvas or Open Canvas
[ ] Create an issue on the CodeForBuffalo.github.io repo with the title Add [my project] to projects page. A Code for Buffalo leader will review this issue and post your project :balloon:
[ ] Tell the City of Buffalo. If your idea is in a shareable format and can benefit people around the city, go to that site and follow the instructions on the bottom of the page to showcase your work there.

If you get stuck at any point, feel free to reach out to the leadership team on Slack by adding @leadership to your message. We're here to help you make real changes to our city.

CodeForBuffalo / project-ideas