I used to think complaining to the city was useless... until last Thursday

I always figured filing reports for potholes was a waste of time, but after hitting that crater on Elm Street and messing up my alignment, I tried the city's 311 app on a dare. They patched it in less than 48 hours, and I couldn't believe my eyes. The real kicker was my neighbor saying he'd been reporting the same hole for six months with no luck, so maybe I just got lucky. What's the secret trick to getting the city to actually show up?

3 comments

3 Comments

lewis.mila25d ago

Wait but are we sure the app thing isn't just pure luck? I've used it twice for a street light that was flickering for weeks and both times they closed it as "resolved" even though it's still doing the same thing today.

shanef3425d ago

Dude no way, same thing happened to me with a sidewalk crack! Reported it through the app just messing around and they had someone out there fixing it like two days later. I'm convinced it's all about hitting them on the app vs calling or something, lol.

anna49125d ago

Oh wait, hold on. I gotta disagree a little bit on the app vs calling thing. I think the app is actually worse in some ways because it's easier for them to just close stuff out without actually fixing it, like what happened to mila. The sidewalk crack probably got fixed because it was a trip hazard and they're faster about that stuff for liability reasons. But with a flickering light, they probably just mark it as done to get the ticket count down. I've had way better luck calling the city directly and actually getting a real person who can check on the status.