Have you ever noticed something like a fallen tree or a downed power line in the city and not known which city department to call to come take care of it?
Well luckily, there’s an app for that if you live in Detroit.
The Improve Detroit app has been used to help residents report issues like potholes, fallen trees and broken street lights.
Today the city focused on addressing some of the illegal dumping sites throughout neighborhoods on Detroit’s west side.
Since Improve Detroit launched two years ago, nearly 9,000 illegal dumping sites have been addressed. The app has helped resolve more than 67,000 issues in the city’s neighborhoods.
Amy Sovereign, the System Administrator in the Program Management Office in Detroit, said the app speeds up the process of fixing these issues.
“Because it goes directly from the citizen to the city department,” she said.
The department receiving the report will then act accordingly.
Sovereign said residents can still grab their phone and call the specific department if they don’t have the app.
“All the phone lines are still available, we didn’t take any lines down in wake of this app,” she said.
Ron Brundidge, the Director of the Department of Public Works in Detroit, believes the app has helped his office plenty since its release two years ago.
“For us it just provides another very convenient and great opportunity for us to be aware of situations that are out there that we want to address,” he said.
According to Brundidge, the city usually responds to reports made through the app within a week.