The City of Detroit released a smartphone app called Improve Detroit that lets you various report issues, including downed trees on roads and sidewalks. We thought we’d give it a try.
There are a couple instances of trees blocking the northbound bike lane and sidewalk along St. Aubin, which is part of the Inner Circle Greenway.
We took care of one with pruners but the other was much more significant, so we used the phone app. We reported it on Monday later afternoon and it was taken care of the next day — in less than 24 hours.
We visited it yesterday and confirmed their work. Certainly the sidewalk needs improving and the street needs sweeping, but unfortunately neither are reportable with this new app. At least there won’t be tree branches extending into the road this year. The street sweeper can stay at curb, too.
We have proposed adding street sweeping requests, to which Detroit’s CIO Beth Niblock replied via Twitter.
The Improve Detroit phone app is available for both Android and Apple. More information is available on the City’s website.