Is it civic service? Gamified running? A way to get more kudos on Strava? Exactly.
What's the Deal?
Water Run is a community-led map of public drinking fountains.
It organizes information about where fountains are, if they work, what type they are (eg. bottle-filler, bubbler, dog bowl), and if they're seasonal.
This has immediate and long-term benefits:
- Immediately, there is more reliable access to working fountains
- Long-term, Water Run automatically submits repair requests to 311
Powered by Runners
This map is made by runners, for... everyone! By routing runners past fountains that haven't been checked in a while, we regularly canvas where drinking fountains are most densely placed.
But why runners? Runners are able to quickly test if a fountain works and move on. Compare this with cycling, for example, which lends itself to longer stretches in the saddle. Or walking, which tends not to cover much distance at one time. Each end of this pedestrian-spectrum has something to offer, but we're currently optimized for the biggest impact on the places where fountains are most dense: cities.