Honolulu Grows App Offerings

Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle has directed all city department and agency heads to support its open data initatives. In his June 18 memo, he wrote: “By freely sharing data amongst the citizens of the City & County of Honolulu, we hope to develop opportunities for economic development, civic engagement, and create a more informed citizen.”

And now, Honolulu’s engagement with the national “Code For America” program has now brought three new web apps for citizens, coded by Code for America 2012 fellow Mick Thompson and based on data made public by the city. Here’s a quick look:

http://routeview.honolulu.gov/
Gives drivers the opportunity to avoid traffic jams by showing images of real traffic conditions along their route. The mashup combines Google Maps with the city’s traffic camera network.

http://sirens.honolulu.gov/
Allows users to adopt a tsunami siren in their neighborhood. Residents can sign up to take responsibility for individual sirens and to report any malfunctions (false alarms or failure to sound). The application also allows users to name their siren and receive an email notification alerting them when the siren will be tested. This app was based on code from Boston’s “Adopt-A-Hydrant” program, where citizens volunteer to shovel out fire hydrants after heavy snow covers them.

http://art.honolulu.gov/
Gives users the location of public art on display at City sites. This app is optimized to be viewed on mobile web browsers, and uses the GPS locations reported by smartphones or location-aware web browsers.

These utilities join the growing library of smartphone and web apps listed on the transparency portal the city launched last year. The “CityCamp Honolulu Hackathon” in January had already sparked the creation of several other city data apps.