My LinkNYC Number Crunching Gets Some Respect

I am happy to report that my “LinkNYC By the Numbers” data-crunching, if I can call it that, has earned some real-world respect. In the past my accounts of what is right and what is wrong with the LinkNYC Smart City kiosks had been read almost exclusively by people at CityBridge, its public relations posse, and DoITT, the city agency that oversees the LinkNYC program. I don’t know if they think I don’t know this or what they say about my comments behind the corporate façade. But I can point to numerous instances where a glitch or goof I wrote about on this site was quickly addressed by CityBridge, all without acknowledgement from anyone at the consortium that this is where they got their information.

I remain a bit circumspect about my processing of LinkNYC datasets, simply because I know much of the data, provided by CityBridge, is not accurate. Some of it looks credible, in particular the number of LinkNYC tablets reported as not working. As I write this that number is 102, or 5.75% of the 1773 kiosks installed and activated, a number which sounds about right based on my observation.

But the number of kiosks with non-working phone calling is reported as zero, which is ridiculous. In most cases when the tablet I dead so too is the phone calling feature, though I have seen a small number of instances where the tablet was down but calls could be made using the physical keypad below the tablet screen. That’s been very rare, though.

As I write this CityBridge reports that WiFi is not working on 9 of its kiosks, or .51% of its network. I’m unwilling to verify this data point, since I do not connect to public or shared WiFi unless I know and trust the people who provide it. I made one exception to this rule in March, 2018, when I canvassed a number of kiosks and tallied WiFi speeds using the Speedtest App. Results were all over the place, with some kiosks delivering blazing fast speeds, others with no signal whatsoever, and still others showing speeds reminiscent of the 300-baud modem days.

With that said I return to this data-crunching earning some “real-world” respect. It got the attention of Gabriel Sandoval, at THECITY.nyc, who wrote a piece asking some of my unasked questions about LinkNYC. Sandoval focused in particular on the number of LinkNYC kiosks installed but never activated, a dataset which lists 52 kiosks dormant for as long as 823 days (as of this writing).

Gabriel and other reporters at THECITY.nyc did what I don’t have ready means to do, which was visit all 52 of those locations and verify that they were, in fact, installed but never activated. Two of the kiosks listed on this page are actually activated, with those exceptions most likely due to data entry errors. While other reports taken from CityBridge’s dataset are obviously inaccurate it looks like the report on kiosks installed but never activated is pretty much spot-on, as are my approximate calculation on how much the City could penalize CityBridge in the form of fines.

With 50 kiosks installed but never activated the City’s DoITT agency told THECITY that fines had in fact been levied against CityBridge, but declined to say how much money those fines amounted to. At present DoITT could have fined the consortium over $1.5 million. If those fines are really being levied it might explain why manufacturing and installation of new kiosks came to a halt in mid-2018. CityBridge must be spending all its money on penalties.

THECITY also addressed an issue that has become something of a peeve for me, and I am not one easily inclined toward peevishness. When CityBridge removes a payphone they used to replace it with the beginnings of a LinkNYC kiosks, meaning the metal-frame foundation of the kiosks, its gigabit fiber cables, etc. To prevent anyone meddling with this stuff they place a large orange pylon made of plywood on top of the location. CityBridge will leave these rotting, splintery hulks with nails sticking out of them on the sidewalk indefinitely, with at least one that I know of even making an appearance on Street View as far back as July, 2018. I wrote about this yesterday, concluding that the trend in CityBridge removing payphones today is for them to simply not replace them with anything.

CityBridge had no comment in response to THECITY’s inquiry about the rotting hulks of wood they leave behind.

My last connection with THECITY.nyc, in July of last year, resulted in an article inspired by my years-long quest to get an answer from the MTA about why there was no suicide prevention/crisis counseling telephone on the RFK/Triborough Bridge when a prominent piece of signage promised there was a phone 150 feet ahead.

That story resulted in a phone actually being installed, and my contribution to making that happen sits atop my list of the finest things I think I’ve ever done in New York. The installation of that phone also led to a memorable encounter with the full force of the New York City Police Department, an incident that brought me closer to being involuntarily institutionalized than I realized.