311 Plans Put on Hold

Last fall, after being reelected, Mayor Bloomberg pledged to expand his information baby 311 by integrating information from the United Way to gives callers resources like health care programs and job training. But now it looks like the ambitious plans are facing delays. The NY Sun says that since the commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Gino Menchini, left and the need for these kinds of projects to be bid publicly (originally the United Way was going to handle the expansion), things have slowed down. Only a "referral service for seniors" will be completed this fall.

Here's the city's website for 311: You can see what 311 calls are made in your neighborhood. And for June, waiting time on 311 averaged at 7 seconds and 87% were answered within 30 seconds - and that''s 1,096,130 calls for the month - with most calls asked for information.