Eliminating Disruptions in Government iOS Apps

Source: Statista

iOS App Ecosystem: Growth & Challenges

As of the first quarter of 2019, there were 2.2 million iOS apps[1]. According to Statista this figure is projected to grow to 5.06 million by 2020. While the exponential growth of apps is expected to continue across different mobile platforms, it is going to be increasingly challenging for us to curate and manage our apps for the following reasons:

1.     Antitrust lawsuit that has been allowed to proceed by the 2019 Supreme Court Ruling[2]

2.     Competition from other platforms.

3.     Increasing challenges in enforcing our own rules for app development

While the first two points are a continuing source of concern for Apple, as the Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs, I would like to flag the implication of our current enforcement policy in public utility applications.

Government Apps in iOS

The public sector is finally playing catchup with private businesses in employing apps to improve service delivery. In the U.S., we have close to 38,800 general-purpose governments (counties, cities, towns, other jurisdictions) together with another 51,000+ special districts (school districts, water authorities, parks, other public entities)[3]. These agencies are highly asymmetric in terms of their digital capabilities but are slowly starting to appreciate the power of mobile applications to advance service delivery.

 “Do No Harm”

County and municipal governments are increasingly dependent on entrepreneurial developers and off-the-shelf enterprise solutions for  B2B and B2C operations.  That said, they are also less nimble and slower to respond to our constantly evolving App-Design rules. Unlike a game or a lifestyle app, disruption to any of the Government Apps can cause serious harm to underfunded administrative machinery and to the citizens at the receiving end. Moving forward, we need to have a clear policy on how to regulate Government Services Apps, while without sacrificing our brand value.

 Next Steps

 Expand our staffing capacity to oversee and regulate Public Utility Apps: We are notorious for not responding promptly to Developer concerns. We need to expand our platform regulation team and pay particular attending to diversifying team composition to include employees with policy and administrative experience in urban, suburban and rural governments.

Make “No-Cloning” policy less stringent for Government Apps[4]: There is not a lot of differences in the types of services offered by local government  - Public Works, Public Safety, Tax Collection, Public Schools, etc. Even the most creative App Developer can only work within the scope of services demanded by the citizens. And these are not high-revenue apps with in-app purchases. Overzealous enforcement measures by Apple may ultimately backfire if frustrated government bodies mobilize a negative campaign against Apple through their legislative representatives.

 Track Complaints & Suggestions: Systematically track, assess and address the complaints from public agencies. Deepen the bench of public-agency liaisons among the enforcement team. Create a dedicated communication channel for public agencies to provide constructive feedback

 Establish Public-Private technical oversight board: Enable periodic review of enforcement policies with an oversight board comprised of public agencies, academics, and independent, bipartisan think-tanks. Such a board can also be tasked with reviewing and providing feedback to in-house, policy papers to chart the future direction of Apple’s engagement with public agencies.  

 It’s not about the dollars and we can afford it: Government service apps are only a small share of the iOS ecosystem. Paying attention to make sure they are not left in the lurch due to periodic, unannounced changes in our enforcement policy is critical to retaining the Government’s trust in Apple over the long term.

Source: Statista

References

[1] Nick G, “51 Jaw Dropping App Usage Statistics & Trends, 2019 [Infographic],” Tech Jury (blog), accessed November 25, 2019, https://techjury.net/stats-about/app-usage/.

[2] Tucker Higgins, “Supreme Court Deals Apple Major Setback in App Store Antitrust Case,” CNBC, May 13, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/supreme-court-rules-against-apple-in-app-store-antitrust-case.html.

[3] “Number of Local Governments by State,” accessed November 25, 2019, https://www.governing.com/gov-data/number-of-governments-by-state.html.

[4] “Apple’s Control over the App Store Is No Longer Sustainable,” TechCrunch (blog), accessed November 25, 2019, http://social.techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/apples-control-over-the-app-store-is-no-longer-sustainable/.

State response to social-media triggered communal violence

Scenario: you are a senior policy advisor for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. You have learned that viral rumors (spread by Facebook and WhatsApp) about kidnappers have led to mobs killing over 20 people in the last two months. In the last few days, mob killings of innocent people have spiked. The Prime Minister has repeatedly publicly denounced the killings. What should the Prime Minister do? (Write your response in the form of a blog post of approximately 500 words).

Context

India has a long, gory, and unfortunate history of mass violence and mob killings precipitated by rumors, misinformation and lack of absolute state control over the dissemination of information. The birth of the modern Indian nation started with partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 displacing between 10-12 million people with estimates of lives lost in violence during the Partition ranging from several hundred thousand to two million (Talbot and Singh 2009). 

Free Speech, Hate Speech & Indian Constitution

Article 19 in India’s Constitution that talks about the ‘Right to Freedom’ guarantees the right to freedom of speech and expressions as one of the 6 freedoms. Unlike the First Amendment in the US Constitution, the Indian Constitution does not bestow absolute freedom of expression upon its citizens. The State can intervene, censor and incriminate citizens for expressions of speech alleged to endanger national security, public order, decency and morality, contempt of court, incitement to an offense, and the sovereignty of Indian State. The Freedom of Press has long been in the crosshair of this inherent tension between the right and control of free speech.

Long History of  State Censors & Self-Regulation by the Press

The Indian State has a long history of censoring speech under the guise of protecting “Law and Order” and National Security. Every party in power since Independence have curtailed press freedom with executive actions when threatened by the power of the free flow of information. But thanks to India’s robust and highly decentralized Press, civil society, and a watchful Judiciary, the public still got to hear and see a wide range of published opinions that very vetted through journalistic processes of different standards. Established laws against incitement and in-house checks and balances established by major publishing houses have mostly been effective in preventing the press from becoming rumor mills. But this is all before Social Media entered the scene.

Enter Social Media - The Great Disruptor & Hatred Accelerator

With the explosion of smartphones, wifi access, and easily manipulated photoshop memes, it is as if a great dam broke and all the latent resentment, communal hatred, caste-prejudices were able to bubble forth into a torrent of peer-to-peer hate speech channels. While certain political parties at the state level have used these results to their advantage to whip up majority vote, it is increasingly becoming untenable for Narendra Modi’s ruling party to preserve law and order in the Union when the State loses control over the dissemination of information.

What should the Prime Minister do?

The Prime Minister can do a lot without shutting down Social Media. I believe it is disingenuous for an all-powerful State to claim that the only way it can control violence is by curtailing channels of information. Such a policy would conflict with the Nation’s Constitutional principles. Furthermore, in a democratic country where a significant share of the GDP comes from Information Technology, a large number of highly skilled tech workers and outright censorship of digital mediums can be a self-defeating proposition.

I would recommend an old-fashioned policy strategy that would accomplish the following - Inform, Investigate, Indict. And they could all be done over the digital medium.

Inform

The Prime Minister has a bully pulpit that he is always ready to deploy to advance his political agenda through his tweets. He ultimately controls the Telecommunication Network. Wouldn't it be highly effective if he sends a text message from his official account to ever phone number in the area being affected by violence categorically denouncing the rumors and promising swift action against the agents of violence and disinformation? Such a message from the Prime Minister’s Office can be followed up by updates from the State and Local authorities.

Investigate

Most States and the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) already have an IT-Task force in place that can easily track the source of messages with IP addresses. Employ the Executive apparatus of the State to investigate the source of discord. Follow the due process, get an emergency warrant, go after the bad actors and confiscate their disinformation tools.

Indict

Promptly bring the perpetrators to justice. Let the citizens know that the government ultimately has an upper hand in tracking those who break the law, and it will do so promptly. And yes, he can also do that over a text message.

References:

Talbot, Ian; Singh, Gurharpal (2009), The Partition of India, Cambridge University Press,ISBN 978-0-521-85661-4

Constitution of India-Part III Article 19 Fundamental Rights.

The LastPass Review

You are Chief of Staff to the Dean of Harvard Kennedy School and a faculty member is proposing that LastPass be made mandatory for all faculty, students, and staff. You have a meeting with the Dean and the Head of IT - what would you recommend and why?

About LastPass

“LastPass” is an online password manager that stores encrypted passwords online. LastPass is a freemium password manager that stores encrypted passwords online. The standard version of LastPass comes with a web interface, but also includes plugins for various web browsers and apps for many smartphones.[1] The blog below explores the question of whether a post-secondary academic institution (Harvard Kennedy School in this case) should mandate such a password manager for the benefits of its faculty, students and staff.

History of Digital Security Breaches at Harvard

In the summer of 2015, Harvard revealed that the University’s IT systems were breached in June affecting 8 colleges and administrations. While HKS was not in that list, it could’ve easily been Kennedy School instead of the Graduate School of Design. As a result of the incident Harvard tightened up its digital security protocols rolling out Harvard Key with two-factor authentication.

Evaluating Digital Assets, Assessing Threats & Consequences

The security-plan recommendations of the open-source Surveillance Self-Design Guide is used as a basis for analyzing the assignment scenario. I would begin by asking the following questions:

• What digital data do HKS Students have in the cloud that is worth protecting

• Who do the Students (and HKS) want to protect from?

• How likely is the threat level?

• How bad are the consequences for the students if their digital security is breached?

• How much trouble do the students have to go through if LastPass is made mandatory?

Increasing Attacks on Educational Institutions

Since mid-2000, there has been an increasing trend of cyber attacks against post-secondary institutions. According to Educause, “551 data breaches occurred at U.S. universities between 2005 and 2013”. A study by the Identity Theft Resource Center underscores the increasing cyber threats for US Colleges and universities. The open ecosystem established for the sake of free flow of ideas and knowledge within the university also renders them more vulnerable to the threat by hackers. The latest Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR) produced by Verizon provides crucial perspectives on threats different organizations are facing. While the report address a range of industries from Financial Services to Manufacturing - the data highlights the lurking danger for Educational institutions.

Protect the Student to protect the Institution

Open academic environments are highly vulnerable to both physical and digital security breach. It takes a security apparatus even at the cost of personal privacy to ensure personal and institutional safety. We have long signed off our right to be recorded by close-circuit cameras as a trade-off to thrive within a safe space that is monitored 24/7. Just like students are required follow ‘Active Shooter Protocols” to protect themselves in case of an existential threat by an external agent, it is not unreasonable to ask the same student to take the extra step of installing a password protection softward protect themselves and their privacy information.

Unlike bodily harm, a malware attack or a data breach within a students personal computer could easily be the ideal channel to break into the larger institutional database that has lot more to lose. There is no skin off Harvard’s back if a student who chooses not to lock his/her bike loses it. However a network breach through a personal account is likely to have larger ramifications.

Attack Patterns & Threat Actors

According to the Verizon report, Web Application Attacks are among the top three attack patterns within Educational Institutions. Currently, almost all of HKS student’s digital interactions are performed with web application and the data is stored in the Cloud. It has been proved, users tend to gravitate to similar usernames and passwords to deal with the ever increasing demands for authentication, thereby rendering them more vulnerable to data breaches. While LastPass is not perfect, it certainly offers a robust perimeter of digital defense with two-factor authentication.

When it comes to Educational Services, threat actors are equally split between external and internal parties. In other words, a good share of potential hackers may very well be the insiders - an integral part of the educational community we are trying to protect.

What if LastPass gets hacked?

Perhaps it was a coincidence. But LastPass was hacked in July 2015 - the summer when Harvard was hacked. The goal was to breach the password vault. But even LastPass cannot hack its own vault without the user’s master password. As the saying goes, there is nothing like a perfect security. But if a simple installation of a user-friendly password manager can exponentially decrease the threat levels for personal computing and institutional networks, its a trouble worth going through to protect our data, privacy, and free exchange of ideas.

References:

2019 Data Breach Investigation Report / Verizon

2015 Harvard Security Breach / TechCrunch

https://www.upguard.com/blog/the-lucrative-rewards-of-hacking-higher-education

What Cyberthreats do Higher Education Institutions Face? / Forbes

https://blog.lastpass.com/2015/06/lastpass-security-notice.html/ LasPass

Natick Fall 2019 Town Meeting - Article 29

Reproduced below are contents of the completed questionnaire submitted by me to the Finance Committee before my scheduled committee hearing. Please note, there may be some minor edits and formatting changes from the submitted questionnaire.

At a summary level and very clearly, what is the proposed purpose and objective of this Warrant Article and the required Motion?

• Encourage a mix of housing types and sizes, at a range of affordable price points

• Increase housing options for single-person households, empty-nester couples, veterans, persons with disabilities, and long-term Natick residents who seek to downsize while remaining in Natick

• Encourage car-free, or minimal car ownership households proximate to the Natick Center Commuter Rail station to reduce new demand on traffic and parking

• Support new businesses with a walkable neighborhood that enlivens Natick Center and provides desirable restaurant and retail alternatives for residents and visitors.

• This article will achieve these objectives by removing a density formula that limits opportunities for beneficial development and redevelopment in our Town center, and by removing a requirement that promotes greater offsite parking than is required elsewhere in Natick.

What does the sponsor gain from a positive action by Town Meeting on the motion?

I do not have any commercial or equity interest from a positive action by Town Meeting on the motion.  As a licensed planner certified by the American Planning Association, I believe it is also my professional responsibility to advocate for policies that are in the general interest of my community here in Natick

Describe with some specificity how the sponsor envisions how: the benefits will be realized; the problem will be solved; the community at large will gain value in the outcome through the accompanied motion?

I envision a Natick Center with a rhythm of life beyond 9 am-5 pm, which offers the opportunity for the residents to live, work and thrive. I envision a transformation from a token “Downtown Mixed-use District” to a truly inclusive “Downtown Neighborhood” that provides a range of accessible and affordable housing choices for a town where more than 23% of residents are over 55 years of age (per Natick 2030 Master Plan) . By providing opportunities for appropriately scaled, mix-use development, we encourage investment in both residential solutions for people with few housing choices, such as Natick’s seniors, people with disabilities, and young singles and couples who have limited choices if they want to remain in our community. In addition, by scaling back on-site parking requirements so they are not greater than what is required outside of the DMU, we do make DMU development more cost-effective and less automobile-dependent.

 How does the proposed motion (and implementation) fit with the relevant Town Bylaws, financial and capital plan, comprehensive plan, and community values as well as relevant state laws and regulations

The proposed motion and its implementation will further the collective goals of the Town residents as established by the Natick 2030 Master Plan. As one of the Master Plan Advisory Committee members who helped shape the Master Plan over a 12-month period, I am confident that this proposed motion is aligned with the Master Plan.

 Have you considered and assessed, qualified and quantified the various impacts to the community such as:

Quantifying economic development impacts is beyond the scope of the zoning bye-law article. But I will be presenting a diagrammatic analysis of what is means to develop on a conforming property in the Downtown Mixed use district.. Furthermore, as a planner and an urban designer I have led and facilitated downtown revitalization and neighborhood development efforts in towns such as Cambridge, MA, Somerville, MA, Dublin, OH, Mountain View, CA, Palo Alto, CA, Alexandria, VA among others – all of them grappling with similar issues of growth, housing affordability, traffic, and lack of sufficient smaller housing stock for the aging boomers and single-family households.

 While each of the above cities, towns, and suburbs are unique in their own right, the article furthers “Smart Growth” principles advocated by the US Environmental Protection Agency, The American Planning Association, Congress of New Urbanism, and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

 Who are the critical participants in executing the effort envisioned by the article's motion?

To this point what efforts have been made to involve those participants who may be accountable, responsible, consulted or just advised/informed on the impacts of executing the motion?

Community & Economic Development, Town of Natick; Downtown Business Owners; Local Developers and Natick Residents.

What steps and communication has the sponsor attempted to assure that Interested parties were notified in a timely way and had a chance to participate in the process, that appropriate town Boards & Committees were consulted, required public hearings were held

I have already presented to the Board of Selectmen, The Planning Board, and the Finance Committee. All of the above boards have voted in favor of the article.

Why is it required for the Town of Natick AND for the sponsor(s)?

The recent fire has been devastating to the businesses that have lost their homes. It’s going to be extremely challenging to rebuild the site (and develop others) with current density restrictions. Furthermore, it will be a missed opportunity if rebuilding proposals end up adding to Town’s luxury condo stock instead of enlivening the downtown with smaller, less car-dependent units that are accessible and affordable, and with the first-floor retail/restaurant establishments that are in public demand.

Since submitting the article petition have you identified issues that weren’t initially considered in the development of the proposal?

The article petition factors all pertinent issues that I am aware of.

What are other towns and communities in the Metrowest area, or the Commonwealth of MA doing similar to what your motion seeks to accomplish

Almost all “Housing Production Plans” developed for Metro West towns and communities (Wellesley 2018, Wayland 2016, Sudbury 2016, Southborough 2015, Ashland 2014), highlight need for housing options for single-person households, empty-nester couples, veterans, persons with disabilities, and long-term residents who choose to “age-in-place”.

If this Warrant Article is not approved by Town Meeting what are the consequences to the Town and to the sponsor(s)? Please be specific on both financial and other consequences.

If this Warrant Article is not approved, the current density regulations are likely to encourage the production of larger luxury condos in the Downtown Mixed-use District. Any developer who chooses to work with strict limits on unit density will seek to maximize the as-of-right developable area with larger units, making them more suitable for households with school-age children increasing automobile traffic in the downtown area.

 Such developments will come at a deep societal cost of a missed opportunity to implement regulations that favor the production of smaller units compatible with the needs and budgetary limitations of long-term Natick residents -- those who choose to “age-in-place”, persons with disabilities and Veterans seeking permanent housing solutions.

Provide the article motion exactly as it is intended to be voted on by the Finance Committee.

 Motion A: Move to amend the Town of Natick Zoning Bylaws by replacing the text “; and” at the end of Article III-E, Section 2, subsection b-1-ii, with “.” and by deleting the entirety of Article III-E, Section 2, subsection b-1-iii, which reads

“iii. the total number of multi-family units shall not exceed the number computed by taking the:

a. Gross Land Area of the parcel times the Maximum Percentage Building Coverage

b. multiplied by the number of floors in the building

c. multiplied by the portion of the Gross Floor Area attributable to residential uses in the building

d. divided by the Gross Floor Area in the building, and

e. divided by 2,500

The portion of the Gross Floor Area attributable to residential uses shall include i) corridors and common areas on residentially used floors, ii) storage areas for residential use, and iii) the proportional share of common corridors and common areas for all uses in a mixed-use building, and (iv) the square footage of residential units”

Motion B: Move to amend the Town of Natick Zoning Bylaws by deleting the following text in Article V-D, Section 3, subsection b:

“In a DM district there shall be one (1) space for a studio apartment, two (2) spaces for a 1 or 2 bedroom unit, and three (3) spaces for units having three (3) or more bedrooms, all of such spaces to be provided on-site. (Art. 45 S.T.M. April 7, 1987)”

Should Towns just "Ask-Once"?

About Natick, MA

Natick is located near the center of the Metrowest region in Greater Boston and has a population of 32,786 per 2010 census. The 2010-2014 American Community Survey (ACS) estimates show 66 percent of Natick residents have earned a Bachelor’s Degree or higher compared to only 40 percent state-wide. between 2010 and 2014 Natick grew 3.6%, making it one of the fastest-growing towns in the Boston area. Based on the resident demographics and education levels, Natick is well-positioned to streamline its e-Government services and consider the benefits, limits and challenges of instituting an “ask-once” policy based on a unique digital ID for the town residents.

Town Organization & Resident Services

Before we consider instituting “ask-once” policy, its critical to do a deep-dive into the existing intra-government, bureaucratic structure the evaluate the need and relevance of data currently collected by various department during the course of thousands of daily online transactions between the town government and the residents.

The town is broadly organized under the following departments and each department is responsible for a range of services. Currently, the residents can interact with the following agencies online, and each department requires the user to fill in multiple online forms depending on the nature of service request by a resident. The following list comprises a comprehensive list of Town Departments with some of key services.

• Community & Economic Development

  • Planning Department - Permit Applications (Special Permit, Variance, Rezoning)

  • Building Department - Permit Applications (New Building Permit, Remodeling Permit, Gas/Electricity/Plumbing Permits, etc)

• Community Services

  • Park & Rec (Space Bookings, Summer Camp registration - not affiliated with School District)

  • Senior Services (Tax Assistance, Volunteer requests, Transportation Assistance, CHORE program, Nutritional assistance, Additional services offered by Council of Aging/Natick Senior Center)

  • Medical Services (Insurance Counseling, BP Screening, Equipment Loan, Flu-shot clinics - services that does not trigger HIPAA paperwork)

• Finance Department

  • Assessor (Property assessment, WebGIS, Personal exemption application)

  • Collector (Tax notices, Online tax payments)

• Fire Department

  • Communications regarding Town-wide fire alarm system

  • Inspections

  • Fire watch/Detail request system

• Public Health Department

  • Food Licenses & Permit Applications

  • Resident alert & mass communication systems

• Library

  • Digital library services (book & media rentals, room bookings)

  • Event announcements

• Police Department

  • Online reporting

  • Sex offender registry

  • Emergency announcements

• Public Works

  • Trash & Recycling (special announcements, holiday schedules)

  • Water & Sewer (online payments, permit applications)

  • Emergency & Public Health alerts

• Natick Public School

  • Scores of online forms! (school registration, after school program registration, school bus, cafeteria account, emergency contacts, complaints, school/class-specific announcements, etc)

Benefits of Single Resident-ID & Ask-Once Policy

• Such a policy would minimize the paperwork, increase cooperation between various agencies that currently occupy a three-story town hall, but seldom seem to get the records straight.  

• Per Natick 2030 Master Plan, about 28% of Natick’s residents are over 55 years of age and this number is expected to increase. An aging population that is dependent on Town Services, but less nimble in keeping up with the rapid pace of technological changes will stand to benefit more from an “ask-once” policy.

• In addition to streamlining service requests from residents, specific departments within the town governments will stand to benefit from greater transparency. For example, currently the Assessors department is in charge of maintaining the WebGIS information, but the information will stand to benefit more with Zoning Overlay information that is maintained by the Planning & Community Development Department.

• Minimizing authentication and consolidation of data will also help marginalized communities and households within the Town with limited internet access and technological proficiency to avail Town services. 

Town of Natick - Potential Data Sharing Stack

“Ask Twice”? Decoupling Public School Data from other Datasets

I would recommend decoupling the digital systems for Natick Public School (NPS) from the rest of the town’s Departments. NPS data involves significant information about the minors and keeping it separate would be in the best interest of the children, parents, teachers and school administration. Furthermore, confidential data on minors in the hands of malicious actors is a serious threat that could be minimized by keeping the Public School data as a discrete highly secure data set. That said, the digital systems should be able to communicate with each other to retrieve and analyze publicly available data such as household sizes, level of education and school performance statistics.

Security Threat Assessments

Town has no need and should not be in the business of collecting biometric data or social security numbers from the residents. Not possessing personal financial data and biometric information should minimize the threat levels from external hackers. Any payments made by the residents for Town Services should be routed through an encrypted third party payment system that employs two factor authentication pre-established at the start of the ask-once process. Security threats are likely to come from private actors seeking quick paydirt. Perhaps having a direct communication channel with the resident over email and text messaging can equip the Town to send out periodic alerts to residents to warn them against potential phishing threats.

Additional Reference: http://securitycards.cs.washington.edu/cards.html

Other Considerations

• The town should design for a “digital ecosystem and not a digital system” . Even within the Town departments, some data is best kept separate. For instance, there is no reason, the Police department should be able to peek at the books checked out by a resident without a warrant.

• Ask only for the data that is required for the Town Department to be able to provide their mandated service. Do not ask for data that is “nice to have, but not required to provide services”

• While designing specific data protections, visualize data as a “part of a spectrum”. Some data that is already in the public domain as required by law (ownership information, property information, assessment) should continue to remain easily accessible.

• Employ “Digital Proofs” on an as-needed basis for cryptographically signed government documents.

Source: Open Data Institute

References

• https://www.internetsociety.org/policybriefs/privacy/

• Government as a platform playbook: https://platformland.github.io/playbook/book/text/trust.html

• Security Threat Assessment | http://securitycards.cs.washington.edu/cards.html

Death, Taxes, and Kitchen Sinks

Why pick on Natick, MA?

I am resident and a homeowner in Natick NA and our family has been living here for the last 5 years . I use the Town’s website to pay a whole bunch taxes and fees - Real Estate Tax, Excise Tax, Water & Sewage Fee, and the occasional parking tickets (which hurts more than all of the rest put together, but I digress!) I am also active in the Citizen Committees and I frequent the Town website to access meeting minutes, agendas and any other public health/safety announcements.

Does a town website need to be a Kitchen Sink?

Natick’s website is a one-stop government portal for its 36,000+ residents. The Town is responsible for providing all kinds of pertinent information through its web portal even if most of the information may be of interest to a very small fraction of the population. Minimalism is not, nor should it be, the goal here. However, that doesn’t mean the portal should be heavily cluttered with all possible links. In addition, the website should allow for seamless online payment of fees, taxes, and fines. For the purpose of this exercise, I have solicited feedback from town residents through an online survey to confirm my own hypothesis about the functionality of the Town’s digital landscape.

First Impressions

The town does not make it easy for you to give them money online!! There is no single landing page to pay for all the fees. Certain fees are redirected through separate third-party payment systems. Some of them accept only checks and do not accept credit card payments - when was the last time you memorized your bank routing number? The customer ID number for the water bill is different from the one for excise tax which is different from the ID number for property taxes. Disjointed systems put in place by different vendors at different times makes it extremely challenging to streamline the online payment process.

Anyone who has used Google will find the search function in the Town’s website completely useless. The town’s website is rich with pertinent information but the circuitous navigation that the user is subjected through does not help.

Hypothesis Testing, Resident Survey & User Feedback

To test my hypothesis, I administered an online poll through Facebook and emails. I solicited responses from 3 groups - Natick Dads, Natick Town Meeting Members, Natick Desis (South Asians), and board members of Natick Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The survey asked about how frequently the user visits the website, the purpose of the visit, the most useful things one finds, the most useful and frustrating aspects of the websites. The results are shown below based on 32 user responses.

About 25% of respondents visit the site at least once a year and around 40% of survey respondents visit the Town website at least once a month. Over 93% of the respondents are using the site to access information and 30% of users use the site to pay taxes, fees, and fines.

The information that is being sought more often is meeting minutes and agenda, information on paying bills, town announcements (alerts, traffic diversions, etc), Property records/GIS. When asked what aspect of the website frustrates users the most, the lack of useful search function and difficult navigation features the most. It was an open-ended question and responded gave similar answers in so many different ways.

Online Path to Pay Town Taxes

Recommendations to improve online payment system

• Create a single-authentication user-id for town residents and property owners

• Redesign tax bills to clearly identify user-ids. Suffixes to bill number may be used to identify the type of bill.

• Create a single page for all online payments by residents (Property Tax, Water & Sewage Bill, Motor Excise Tax, Business Tax, Parking Fines, Other Fines)

• Seamlessly integrate the third-party payment system within the Town website

Recommendations to improve content organization and site navigation.

When asked what aspect of the website frustrates users the most, the lack of useful search function and difficult navigation rose to top of the list. It was an open ended question and respondents gave similar answers in so many different ways —

• “search function is worthless”

• “need too many clicks to drill down information”

• “hard to find what I am looking for - no contact information for board members”

• “everything”

I would recommend doing a traffic diagnostic analysis of the website to identify most visited pages, broken links, and the pages where users give up seeking information without completing the task - that for which they came to the site in the first place. And completely rethinking the navigation to be in sync with the user demands.

It’s time to rethink the navigation and make the search function more robust. Older websites and digital town portals should not last forever with multiple corrective patches, especially when they are supposed to function as effective Kitchen Sinks.

Parking Premiums: A low-hanging anodyne for Boston's congestion pains

Moving on from 20th Century Technology

Number-plate reading technology to enable localized local pricing began as a 20th century technology first implemented by Singapore starting in 1975. 28 years since then, London started congestion pricing, soon followed by Milan and Stockholm. London’s Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology is powered by thousands of cameras that communicate with a central database. This system while being effective in the short turn, comes with a high price in terms of capital costs, civil liberty and privacy concerns.  Even a year-long train similar to those in Stockholm and Milan can be capital intensive and may not be suitable for Boston if we are looking for an inexpensive congestion-control strategy that can be easily tested.

Why increasing current tolls wont work?

While it would be more straightforward to institute a pricing system with the existing toll roads, it will be extremely challenging to monitor all the other arterials, primary and secondary streets leading to Boston. Any significant  increase in toll on the freeways will eventually alter driver behavior with the assistance of applications such as WAZE. Cars will be re-routed to alternative routes significantly increasing neighborhood traffic leading to the City of Boston. And it will be a losing proposition to start building ANPR infrastructure on hundreds of entry points to Boston for a trial study.

Carrots & Sticks

There are two broad carrot and stick approaches to limit congestion

• Incentivize Public Transit

• Charge incoming automobile traffic

A good solution probably lies somewhere in between. While “sticks” (taxing) can be hugely unpopular among drivers, ‘carrots’ can be equally complicated to implement as it would require significant inter-agency collaboration and buy-in. With MBTA running a deficit, it would be hard to convince MassDot to reduce fares so that the City of Boston can directly reap the benefit fewer cars.

The Solution: Parking Pricing

Per Donald Shoup’s classic “The High Cost of Free Parking” a significant blame for city traffic goes to cars cruising around to find a parking space.  Unless it is rideshare or taxi service, most cars entering the City will occupy a parking space - either in a structured Garage, or in one of those fast disappearing parking lots, or within an on-street parking space . It will not be a heavy lift to assemble a database of existing public garages and off-street parking spaces in office building (from building permit database). Instituting a weighted parking charge for short-term on-street parking, day-long garage parking, and off-peak hour parking will act as a major deterrent for those who have the option of taking public transit. 

Road Blocks 

Over the short-term, this could trigger a major opposition from the owners and operators of parking garages. But, given Boston’s meteoric rise in real estate prices, garages are certainly not the highest and best use, and most property owners would eventually be delighted to convert them to higher revenue producing commercial and luxury residential uses.

What about issues of Equity? 

Those who live on the economically margins are less likely to drive and park in the City in the first place if provided with a robust public transportation alternative at a reasonable price. Means-tested, transit subsidy would certainly help in alleviating the transportation cost in such cases.

How do you solve a problem like TNCs?

According to a 2018 Study Transportation Network Companies (TNC) like Uber and Lyft with their “while touted as reducing traffic, in fact add mileage to city streets. Even with these shared services, TNCs put 2.6 new TNC vehicle miles on the road for each mile of personal driving removed, for an overall 160 percent increase in driving on city streets”. A parking charge will not work for these services cluttering city streets at 20mph. In such cases, increasing the frequency of intra-city shuttles and bus services and a congestion tax on Uber & Lyft is likely to reduce the traffic on street.

Summary: Parking Premiums as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

It will not require any additional investment on capital infrastructure to increase the pricing in parking meters and to to levy additional fees for garage parking spaces and TNCs (proportionate to the miles traveled). While the pushback would be swift from TNCs and Garage Owners, if the City can weather the  short-term political storm, there is a good chance Mayor can reward our residents with a homerun in reducing congestion.

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Additional References

Robin Chase, “The Technology that could transform Congestion Pricing”, Citylab.com

Gabrielle Gurley, “Do All Roads lead to Congestion Pricing”, Prospect.org

Aaron Naparstek, “ Congestion Pricing should be attached to Parking Reform”, Streetsblog NYC, Oct 2007

Jeanmarie Evelly, “Will Congestion Pricing create Parking Problems at the Periphery”, Citylimits.org, March 2019

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