San Antonio launches new dashboards to update citizens on projects

As part of efforts to boost transparency and open communication, the City of San Antonio’s Public Works Department is rolling out online dashboards to keep residents informed about the status of projects.

The new visualisations encompass a range of projects, including streets, drainage, parks, and facilities, with overview pages which allow users to filter projects by type, phase, and status.

“[The dashboards] align with our goal of transparency and enhance the ways we share information about our vital infrastructure and construction projects,” said Razi Hosseini, director of the city’s Public Works Department.

“We are committed to continually improving this tool and welcome feedback from our residents and stakeholders.

“It is essential for us to meet the needs of our community through such innovative technologies.”

The dashboards also offer the contact information of public works staff available to answer and respond to residents’ questions or concerns about any project.

In addition, the department recently created individual pages for all 2022 bond projects on SASpeakup.com.

The pages – accessible via the bond projects dashboard – provide additional information about each project, such as accurate construction timelines and project costs, as well as a feedback form and the ability to sign up for email updates.

Smart city roadmap

Last July, the city launched a new Smart Cities Roadmap, detailing its approach for using technology and data to improve public services and quality of life in the US’s seventh-largest city.

The launch followed over a year of stakeholder engagement and introduced new guiding principles based on community feedback to the question: “What makes a smart city?”

The roadmap outlined that approaches must be “accessible, connected, efficient, informed, and safe”.

A new Smarter Together Testbed will support the testing of ideas and solutions on five themes that San Antonio residents described as priorities during the stakeholder engagement process: access to transportation, access to public information, public safety, safe infrastructure, and resilience and environmental quality.

Informed by an employee survey, the roadmap also identifies three strategic areas of focus expected to have the biggest organisational impact: business operations, data, and resident engagement.

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