Do you want to find out the date of the Rogers Santa Claus Parade? Wondering when the street cleaners will be around to sweep up the wet sludge of fallen leaves outside your place? Want to know holiday hours at the nearest public swimming pool?
If you live in the City of Vancouver, there’s a simple, unforgettable number that will get you all these answers – and a whole lot more: 311. Elsewhere in Metro Vancouver, you have to dig out the blue pages (if you dare) or get online (if you have a computer and Internet hookup). My totally unscientific observation is that few people know about 311.
Unlike other cities that have the service (Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Windsor, Chicago and New York among them), Vancouver has no mention of 311 on its Internet home page. Go to Vancouver.ca/311 and you’ll get a “coming soon” message. The promised public launch in fall 2009 never materialized. The mayor never talks about it. The 48 full-time-equivalent city employees in a special office at Spyglass Place under the Cambie Bridge are being accused of filing their nails and playing video games by one self-bloated blog pontificator who calls 311 “an unquestionable bust. Instead of calling a particular department directly, you’re getting an additional, expensive layer of bureaucratic BS – and all on your dollar.”
For insiders who trade in secret emails from staff or who know engineering department plan-checkers by name, the notion that some people need help to get through to city hall seems barely worth a sneer. What other cities have found, however, and what drove people like me to vote to implement 311 here, is that it’s the most popular service in cities that have it. Whether it’s a pothole, a tree leaning over a sidewalk, a missed garbage pickup or a complaint about a taxi driver, just call 311 and you’ll be put through to someone who can help or given a number and promised a response or a followup after a few days.
Don’t speak English? No problem, you’ll be connected to outside translators in 170 languages in less than a minute. Is it after business hours? No problem, Vancouver’s service is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. When Winnipeg had its last big flood, everyone wanting to volunteer was co-ordinated through 311.
The pro-311 commentators, Citycaucus.com in particular, allege that citizens are being denied the full benefits of 311 service because it was an NPA initiative that today’s ruling Vision Vancouver party and CUPE opposed and continue to downplay. The fact that the proposed fall 2009 public launch never happened makes you wonder. That, plus the preoccupation of this council with issues like approving $100,000 for day care for the Hastings Park casino or endorsing the Vienna Declaration “calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies” suggests our current civic rulers might have lost their focus on basic customer service.
The facts are this: after 21 months of operation, the Vancouver 311 service is under budget on both setup ($10.7 million) and operation ($5.1 million per year), with all costs taken from existing services.
The 11,000 weekly calls are being answered in an average of 45 seconds, with the biggest categories being inspections, garbage, transportation, licences, parks and taxes.
The service handles all the police non-emergency calls. Some people are calling it the city’s new front door. The longer it’s around, the more knowledgeable the operators become, and the more the city can reap the back-end benefits of realigning the workforce based on quantified workload rather than organization charts.
With the promised full-scale media launch expected next spring, a lot closer to the November election, I’m predicting this council will quite happily take credit for what could well be the biggest improvement in city services in decades – and start talking about it for a change.