The Northway Reporter
Mark Delfs, the creator of the local fill-in musician site GigSavers, emails:
With the knowledge I gained from teaching myself how to construct [GigSavers], I made a followup site called "The Northway Reporter," which will allow the typical Northway driver an opportunity to report all the traffic incidents they see on a daily basis--the radio is too slow with reports and while I was stuck in traffic the other morning, I figured on making a site that we could all use to report (and get reports) about why we are all still getting stuck in traffic on I-87.
The site is formatted for mobile browsers (is it texting-while-driving if traffic's not moving?) and includes links to traffic cams. There's also a Twitter feed. More features are listed after the jump.
This kind of thing usually only becomes useful if a bunch of people use it. But even if it never reaches that point, we give credit to Mark for building it. A lot of people say "Wouldn't it be great if (fill in possibly useful thing) existed..." -- very few actually do something about it.
More features listed in Mark's email:
Features currently include:
• Submit your own I-87 traffic reports
• See a traffic camera if there is one available at that exit
• See other traffic reports added from users stuck on the Northway
• Reports are auto-added to our Twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/northwaytraffic)
• Send a tweet with the horrible details of why you are stuck in traffic
• Mail the horrible details of the traffic incident to a friend
• Formatted for today's smartphone (you are stopped in traffic, so it's technically not texting while driving)
• RSS feed
• Current weather in the local area
More features to come if people start using it!
Earlier on AOA: GigSavers
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Comments
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"
Don't we all know that Northway is a giant parking lot on Fridays between 4 and 6?
Do we have an alternative route?
Then why do we even need this info if it doesn't change anything?
... said Lu on Oct 3, 2011 at 5:00 PM | link
You're right, it's really not going to actually *change* anything, but, when I'm sitting there not moving, at least I like to do something, anything--and maybe I can actually find out what is causing the traffic jam in the first place. The alternate route is Route 9, which I would gladly take if I *know* there's a bad jam on a random Thursday at 11am for no good reason.
... said Mark H. Delfs on Oct 4, 2011 at 8:45 PM | link