The difference between 911 and 311 seems intuitive to me, but some still struggle. That makes sense when you think about how relatively new it is. 311 was only invented in the 1990s, and it wasn’t adopted in San Francisco until 2007.

In San Francisco, it’s tricky to know when something is an emergency. Some common, practical advice? If you’re afraid you or someone else is going to get hurt, you should call 911. 

Because it’s under the Department of Emergency Management, 911 in San Francisco is separate from the Fire Department or the Police Department. They can help triage the issue and send out the appropriate person. I tend to think of it as: If it involves people that I can see, it’s probably either a 911 call or the non-emergency line (which is connected to police) at 415-553-0123. Otherwise, if there aren’t people, it’s probably a 311 situation.

Akron, Ohio has a marketing slogan that’s even more straightforward. “Burning house? Call 911. Burning question? Call 311.” 

It started as a quest to make it easier for citizens to connect with their government. Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley noticed how siloed his departments were. So he came up with a solution: a single number that could connect you with a call center. This return to an operator-style telephone service would pay dividends; it was immediately popular.

Other cities recognized the impact. Instead of having hundreds of different numbers to dial based on your specific problem, now you could punch in three numbers and get connected to the right person for the issue. On the customer side, it’s brilliant. But how does the backend work?

CRMs are now an entire industry, led by our very own annoying billionaire Marc Benioff. In the 1990s, they were an emerging technology. Now, they help capture details and pick out threads of data trends. 

What does it look like? When you call 311 (or fill out a form on the app), the data goes to two places: the actual complaint you’ve filed, and a sort of catalogue that tells the City about your report. If you say there’s trash on a street, the City can then extract two types of data: How many problems are being reported on a given street? And how many reports concern trash or litter? 

Of course, the data is only as accurate as the reports; if the wrong geospatial coordinates are marked, it could make it difficult for city workers to address the issue. Or if someone marks the wrong thing, thinking it’ll expedite the response, it could mean the wrong team is dispatched and the problem goes back to the end of the queue. 

The story of San Francisco’s 311 line is full of drama and intrigue, despite only being around for twenty years. It is San Francisco, after all. When Gavin Newsom was the mayor, he worked with public servant Nancy Alfaro to finetune the simplified connection line. Alfaro retired just two months ago, but she also happened to be the clerk who first issued gay marriage licenses during the Winter of Love in 2004. Fascinating lady. 

311 hasn’t been without its challenges. There was some fuckery around funding and more recently some politicized shenanigans around people logging complaints about homeless people in confusing and dehumanizing ways. There was even an attempt to make a non-shitty non-city version of the app. (Note: The current app works pretty decently.) I expect those problems to continue. But for now, I’m a pretty regular user of 311. Maybe you’ll be one, too.  

You can dial 311 anywhere in the City. It’ll connect you with our own San Francisco call center, even if your phone number is from another place. Or you can download San Francisco’s official 311 mobile app. It allows you to quickly file a report. Try to always include photos of the issue you’re reporting, and don’t forget to note the report number in case you need to follow up.

The more you report the issues you see instead of just complaining online, the more likely the issue will be taken care of. You’d be surprised at how often people will drive past a pothole assuming the City is just being negligent when it’s actually just an unreported issue. And the more people use the tool, the clearer the data will be around how San Francisco is really doing. Warts and all.