Jenny Park, Green Trips Coordinator in the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning AgencyThere’s a gold mine of data hidden within city government computers, and Tim Moreland wants to tap into it.
Moreland is a Chattanooga planner, working with treasure troves of public information every day. Friday afternoon, he gathered a group of local geeks under the name Open Chattanooga and started finding ways to use that info for the public good.
“We’re opening up the data itself,” he said. “We’re trying to use Open Chattanooga as a platform for citizen engagement.”
He and about 15 volunteer programmers, developers and city officials spent Friday at a daylong “hack-a-thon,” where the group tried to build an application from the ground up.
They nearly finished an online application where users could map routes for traveling by a combination of foot, bike and public transit. Users can adjust routes by level of safety, ease of travel and speed.