By Caitlin Fairchild
NextGov
Data scientist Ben Wellington, runs his own blog about New York using the city’s own open data. He believes that while the Big Apple’s open data portal is good, it could be so much better.
Much of the city’s data is public, but not public enough. Certain things, like the GPS data from the city’s taxis are requested through open-records laws over and over again. Other important information, including crime data and the city budget are ‘entombed’ in PDF format, preventing users from easily analyzing. While there are work-arounds (some citizens even developed programs to scrape the data from PDFs) this format prevents the data from being truly public and ultimately helping the city.
During his research, Wellington examined which fire hydrants in New York City caused the most parking tickets due to cars parking in front of them. He found that the most frequently ticketed fire hydrant was garnering the city nearly $30,000 in fines a year.
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