UTS has set up their own bus-tracking system, which includes a website that works on all browsers, and even has a mobile phone version. UTS and CTS used the same vendor for their projects.
Sideblog
- From the DP: "Authorities dug up the hot dog near the Cedar Hill Mobile Home Park, where they discovered he had lost...his bottles of ketchup and mustard, with which he was slathering himself so he could appear more delicious." #
- Richmond has the nation's top citizen journalism blogs and eightyone's cover story is about hburgnews.com. #
- The Washington Post [hearts] Charlotteville restaurants, especially the commitment to local food. #
- The Hook has the skinny on Monday night's dredging presentation. #
- The SPCA has gotten a $400k grant, acknowledging the success of their transition to being a no-kill shelter. Disclosure: CASPCA is awesome. #
- The Washington Post is all about C'ville coffeeshops, and presumably puts Anoop in the "insanely committed foodie" category. (Via The Hook) #
- It's official: CVS is coming to the Corner. The landlord says that Plan 9 said they wanted out of their lease last year. #
- Prom, Foxfield, and the Dogwood Parade are all on Saturday. Stay out of town or, better yet, get downtown around 10:30 and watch the parade. #
- The USS Charlottesville was a Tacoma-class frigate launched on July 30, 1943. She served just one year in the Pacific before being turned over to the USSR, and then Japan. #
- Here's a 1921 New York Times article about the creation of the Paul Goodeloe McIntire Greek Theater, as the UVa amphitheater is apparently properly known. It was a pretty big deal at the time. #
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This is a community news blog about Charlottesville, VA, USA, started in March of 2001. It's run by Waldo Jaquith. It has nothing to do with C-Ville Weekly, the newspaper. Feel free to submit a story.
I am willing to speculate that UTS had savvy employees overseeing their project and the City hasn’t. That way, the vendor can charge again for a change order and continue to milk the city from what seems to be a bottomless pit. Remember, the City’s staff worked on an HP 3000 which they had at least going back to 1980. This type of billing is what keeps the vendors going during lean times. It sure helped the company I once worked for. It’s my understanding that the vendor has had to get rid of one subcontractor and hire another at the City’s expense. Bad contract negotiations by the City with no strings on its purse.
A more likely explanation is the tech staff. The city has only a few programmers on staff at any given time, while the university has hundreds. It’s no problem for the university to throw an employee at a project like this for a few weeks, while it’s much more difficult for the city to do that.
I agree that UVA has hundreds and the sense to listen to their suggestions. Technically, the City’s staff is not assigned to the installation. The City is paying the vendors and their subcontracted laborers. Occasionally, I see where the City advertises on its job listings page for potential employees for the vendor. Gary O’Connell just informed Council that there will be additional hiring by the vendors, to work on what exactly, I have no idea. It is clear, however, that the City is not up on this technology, although it has been using GIS for some time. That’s why the staff in NDS is still proposing that the City spend $1M on a new “system” of signs to get people in and around town. If you’re downtown any time soon, could you stop and show them how your iPhone works? Maybe one of them will be so grateful, he’ll take you to lunch while you bring him into the 21st century. If you take Dug1138(?) with you, maybe he’ll kick in dessert.