SF Street Cleaning Pilot Expands to Improve 311 Response Time
By Olivia Wynkoop, Bay City News Foundation
In an effort to improve the efficiency of San Francisco’s 311 response service, Mayor London Breed announced that the city will expand on a pilot app for Community Benefit District street cleaners.
The Connected Work App program will send referrals directly to CBD workers in the field to respond in real-time, followed by a photo and notification to the person who submitted the request.
The pilot program initially started with the East Cut CBD, where community members could submit garbage and graffiti clean-up requests to street cleaners. Resolution times improved dramatically at this level, according to pilot data: on average, CBD street cleaners resolved loose trash requests in 5 hours, compared to 34 hours citywide, and graffiti removal requests in public spaces took 13 hours, while citywide average response takes 9 days on average.
The pilot program will be expanding to the Downtown, Fisherman’s Warf, SOMA West, Tenderloin and Yerba Buena CBDs. Historically, all 311 street cleaning requests in the city were handled by Department of Public Works employees. Oftentimes, Public Works employees would arrive at the scene and find that CBD members already cleaning in the community took care of the issue earlier, according to the Mayor’s press release.
“We are working hard every day to improve how we deliver services for our residents, especially around keeping our City clean,” said Mayor London Breed in a press release. “We have so many great City workers and private partners who are working hard to clean up our streets and get rid of graffiti and other garbage, and this will allow us to be more efficient and respond faster when our residents call for service. This is all part of our efforts to work together to make our City shine.”
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