GovTech presented its 2016 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers awards to 25 recipients. The awards have been given since 2002 to leaders who work to fully harness the power of tech in government. This year’s awardees come from all levels of government and all across the country, ranging from Team Obama to Jorge Salinas, the CIO & Assistant City Manager of Albany, Oregon.

Route Fifty reported four key points the Google Fiber team thinks cities and municipalities should keep in mind when moving forward with broadband access projects. The points, coming from the Google Fiber team’s work on municipal fiber in 22 different metropolitan areas, are: a clear idea of what the broadband project will be, a single point of contact within the government, streamlined construction, and up-to-date policy frameworks and regulations.

Steve Goldsmith analyzed Bloomberg Philanthropies’ report on the data gap between cities’ desire to implement data analytics and their ability to realistically do so. He proposed four keys to success that could help cities lessen the gap: focusing on measuring outcomes, building a narrative around data efforts, changing structural incentives within government, and learning from other cities and experts in the field.

We published #DataReads News: GIS. This is the first in our new #DataReads News series, which curates news items from our #ThisWeekInData posts and categorizes them by topic. We hope our #DataReads News posts will be a great resource for anyone looking for recent news on specific civic data topics.

As part of their National Transit Map project, the Department of Transportation is asking for cities to share their transit data. The National Transit Map won’t help residents plan routes like many transit maps, but instead will be used to analyze transit systems across the country as a whole and identify gaps or problems. Such a transit map doesn’t currently exist on this scale, and DOT is optimistic about the potential usages of an openly available and machine readable national map. DOT will begin collecting data on March 31. Cities can sign up on DOT’s website, and any questions can be emailed to them.

CityLab profiled Lauren Ancona’s project mapping parking regulations in Philadelphia. Her map, aptly named “Parkadelphia,” shows residential parking, public parking lots, metered spots, valet parking, and emergency routes throughout the city. The interactive map allows residents to zoom in on areas relevant to them and investigate parking options. She hopes to incorporate a new feature soon that would show the most in-demand parking areas, which she thinks could help local governments and communities to have a more informed discussion about parking and develop more accurately targeted policies to mitigate demand problems.

Next City featured New Orleans’s Office of Performance and Accountability (OPA) and their usage of analytics and behavioral science to improve the lives of citizens. OPA’s original task was to measure blight reduction, but they soon expanded into other projects like trying to prioritize smoke alarm distribution based on available data and “nudging” residents to go to the doctor. OPA partnered with the Behavioral Insights Team to better apply behavioral science techniques to their experiments, and even though the first few projects have had underwhelming results, OPA is hopeful that they’re beginning to enable a cultural shift that will lead to change in the future.

On our site, Laura Adler explored how cities are leveraging location data from mobile phones to improve nearly every aspect of government. She explains how cities can analyze geotagged social media posts to track crime, potholes, or health violations, and how background location data from apps can be used to aggregate data about citywide infrastructure like road conditions. The increase in mobile usage means that cities can more accurately tailor 311 requests or search results to provide nearby results and relevant information.

The Economist wrote about how using data can make cities more efficient and democratic. Boston’s CityScore is prominently featured, and the article explains how Boston has grown over in the ten years since hiring its first chief information officer. The importance of adapting government bureaucracy to work with new data-driven practices is stressed, with Steve Goldsmith explaining how departments need to work together and rethink many current government practices in order to harness the full potential of city data.

CityLab featured the work of research group Good City Life, who created interactive sound maps of cities based on social media posts. The group analyzed thousands of geotagged photos, identified the sound profiles present in each picture’s tags, and aggregated the results. The researchers comment that while most work on sounds in cities focuses only on the negative effects sound can have on humans, their work also highlights sounds associated with happy emotions and those that can help to create a more balanced urban environment.

GovLab and Omidyar Network released a report on the impact of open data based on 19 case studies of open data projects around the world. The report is one of the first analyses on open data’s tangible effects, covering political, social, economic, and cultural impacts. They found four key impacts: open data is improving government, empowering citizens, creating opportunity, and solving public problems. In order for open data initiatives to be successful, the report finds that initiatives need partnerships, public infrastructure, clear policies, and well-defined targets. They also highlight four key challenges facing open data projects: lack of readiness, poor responsiveness, privacy and security risks, and inadequate resource allocation. The report concludes with a list of recommendations for future open data projects.