Last week, Mayor Newson announced that 311, the primary contact number for city and county general services, could now be contacted via Twitter, the uber-popular social networking service of the moment.
Using Twitter, you can instantly send a question, complaint or other rant to sf311 and it will quickly be replied to by a 311 operator (find out more). Newsom is an avid tweeter with over half a million followers, so it’s not surprising he decided to try it out with the city in some form. Hey, at least it’s a free experiment.
Given this unlikely marriage between city government and the latest technology, it was only a matter of time before some funny stories started coming out about people trying to use it. Local blog SF Appeal had a funny story about a resident trying to park near Funston and Clement here in the Richmond, but they were confused by contradicting parking signs.
The posted signs said 2 hour parking was allowed; but on the curb, painted white, it said passenger loading only. Adding to their confusion: plenty of cars were parked in the passenger loading area. In their rational opinion, either the sign or the curb was in error, and needed to be corrected. They thought it was the ideal opportunity to try twittering 311 from their mobile phone to sort out the situation:
We typed: “Signs near church at Funston/Clement say parking is OK, but contradictory curb markings say passenger loading only. Confusing!”
311 replied with a message that was, inexplicably, repeated twice: “Thank you for contacting SF311. Do you know the exact addresses to the signs?^KH”
Oh, we thought that providing the intersection was enough, but okay: “Those confusing signs/curb are in front of church at 300 Funston Ave,” we replied.
Frustration ensues as the tweets continue and the discussion gets into (somewhat) related topics such as available satellite imagery, white curbs vs. no parking signs and street cleaning (read the full exchange here). Many tweets and two days later (so much for quick resolution), they received a couple more responses from 311 and an ironic, final tweet:
“Still confused? Please call 311 thank you. ^SG”
Ahh, this 311 / Twitter thing is going to work out great. I can just feel it.
Sarah B.
Since we’re on the topic… Follow Richmondsfblog on Twitter
P.S. – Upon closer inspection of the front of the church, our parkers missed a faded stamp on the white zone that read “During posted service hours”. So the white zone is only in effect when the church is having services (for which hours aren’t posted; can 311 do something about that 😉 ). Otherwise it’s a regular 2-hour, permit parking zone, subject to street cleaning.
In contrast to your experience above, I’ve found the 311/Twitter integration to work quite well.
I’ve used it a few times to let the city know about junk left on the sidewalk. Their responses have been fast — within an hour, and the junk’s gotten picked up within a day or two. It also takes less time for me to type up a tweet than to actually call 311.
My two cents…
That’s great to hear. I have that same problem with junk left outside our building. I’ll give ’em a tweet the next time around.
Sarah B.