Note: There’s an intro, the DDA response, and Fred’s response in this article. Jump to the end to read Fred’s response.
A few months back, we posted a nice little article on using Asterisk to get Parking Space Availability from Ann Arbor garages. The response from the VoIP community was fantastic! We received great comments and feedback from people like Jason Goecke, Dug Song, Dave Michels, Evan Cooke, and more! People not only responded, they even showed different ways of providing access to this information. And everyone shared their work in an open forum — truly a great example of open source coding inspiring innovation (albeit with Parking Spaces).
Even better was the local response in Ann Arbor. Edward Vielmetti and Fred Posner were interviewed in the local papers, appeared on a radio show, and even rode the teeter totter. Everyone loved the idea of being able to check on parking space availability… everyone except for the DDA (insert scary music).
The DDA (Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority), funded by tax dollars, “provides a diversity of transportation and parking options to meet downtown’s [Ann Arbor’s] ever-changing needs.” The DDA does not like us making information of parking spaces available to the public via phone. Instead, the DDA wants to control this information. Seriously, they want to control parking space availability information.
Tyler Erickson helped Edward Vielmetti and Fred make this project even more fascinating by tracking parking space availability over time. The plan was to provide predictability of availability. For example, “We’re sorry, the lot at 4th and Washington is currently filled, we predict the parking lot will be available in 7 minutes. Press 1 to be notified…”
Wouldn’t that be neat? We thought so… The DDA’s response was to block Tyler’s access. Of course, since it was using Google Apps, it blocked Google, but that’s another story. We inquired as to why this blockage occurred and… well enter Susan Pollay. Susan Pollay is Executive Director of the DDA. She told us (and remember, this is a tax funded organization): Read the rest of this entry »
