Online Map Shows Boston's Blemishes

The City of Boston has just unveiled an online, searchable map that allows visitors to see where and when complaints to the city's 24-hour hotline were made. From requests to fix broken sidewalks—common—to requests to replace missing signs—surprisingly uncommon—the map lets you see, at a glance, how broken the city is.

Among the open complaints Bostonist noticed this morning were a request to remove a dead animal from Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan—outstanding since Thursday—a request to repair a traffic signal downtown that had likewise been languishing since Thursday, and a "major system failure" of Roxbury street lighting that had been open since last Monday.

The data is displayed on a clunky GIS map, but the search function is actually quite snappy. Whether this system, which City Hall has unveiled mere weeks before the Boston mayoral primary, will answer charges, levied by Thomas Menino's opponents, that the mayor's office lacks transparency, remains to be seen. But it's about time that Bostonians can track the city's maintenance online. New Yorkers, for example, have been able to use the Web to track requests made to the city's 311 hotline since January, 2008.