The Effects of App Reporting in 311 Parking Complaints
By: Hayes Buchanan
Tags: Parking, 311, Illegal Parking, NYC

Cycling in New York City is a fraught exercise. Bike usage has skyrocketed since the outbreak of Covid-19, with Citibike trips growing by 67% at the start of the pandemic. And this isn’t just a recent trend: the department of transportation estimates that 510,000 trips are made every day, a threefold increase from 2005. Despite this growth, many residents are reluctant to trade their metrocard for a Citibike pass. Reckless drivers speed through intersections and block bike lanes. 28 cyclists were killed by motorists in 2019, with many more injured. Another big source of would-be cyclist trepidation is the lack of usable bike lanes in the city. Motorists double park, delivery drivers idle in lanes forcing cyclists to swerve into traffic, and trucks block the lines of sight at busy intersections, making for a dangerous environment. Even for pedestrians, drivers often park on sidewalks or crosswalks, posing particular hazards to walkers with strollers or the disabled.

In 2014, developers Josh Weizman and Jeff Novich launched Reported, an app that enables users to report driver infractions directly to NYC’s 311 service. Pedestrians or cyclists that encounter an obstructed bike lane or sidewalk can submit a complaint in minutes, enabling enforcement measures to be taken. Initially only T&LC drivers could be reported by the app, but following an update in 2018 delivery vehicles and personal vehicles could also be reported.

While the city’s 311 data does not record whether Reported was used in making a complaint, an analysis of the complaint rate for complaints that can be made through the app does reveal an uptick in frequency.

Overall parking violations. “Blocked Bike Lane” (Blue), “Blocked Sidewalk” (Orange), and a generic “Illegal Parking” (Green) complaint are all possible through the app. All data via NYC 311.

Looking at all parking complaints, it’s difficult to ascertain whether this increase is simply a part of an overall trend of increased reporting for all complaint types.

Bike lane and sidewalk complaints alone.

Even zooming in to bike lane and sidewalk complaints, it’s not clear that reporting through the app is significantly stimulating an increase in complaints. What it has resulted in, however, is an increase in summonses issued: a 2018 report from the app stated that “a Reported filing leads to a summons against [a TLC] driver 97 percent of the time.”

This is particularly striking given how infrequently a complaint normally results in police action. There are a number of ways that the NYPD can respond to a complaint, fitting broadly into two categories — responding to the complaint or taking no action. However, some justifications for the police’s decision of whether to act are absurd on their face. For example, the police have performed six arrests in response to a complaint that someone was parked on the sidewalk. Conversely, 36 instances of a blocked bike lane were dismissed because “…officers were unable to gain entry into the premises.”

Strikingly, the two most frequent kinds of NYPD response are to arrive too late for the condition to still be occurring (rows 2 and 6). While they seem to enforce blocked fire hydrants, a summons is only issued for 18% of complaints — and for every other type of infraction the enforcement rate is even lower. And the infraction with the lowest summons rate? Blocking the bike lane.

It’s true that the kinds of parking violations described in the 311 complaints are hard to enforce. Many of them only last a few minutes — but cumulatively they create a dangerous environment for pedestrians and cyclists. The Reported app automates part of the reporting process, and has been successful despite it’s low uptake among the general public. There is a good case for further automation through traffic enforcement cameras, like the ones recently installed across NYC school zones. Camera enforcement in problematic areas of NYC’s bike network could be cheaper than installing physical barriers, and would go a long way towards creating a driving culture city-wide that respects bike lanes. Alternatively, the creation of incentive structures around reporting violations could lead to greater citizen participation through the app. Either way, it’s clear that digital complaint reporting works — and has the potential to change driver culture for the better if it can be deployed at scale.