Biggest week since launch. Five media interviews in two days, a flood of feedback from Torontonians on Twitter, and features I didn’t plan to build until someone’s report forced my hand. Here’s everything.
By the numbers
Total reports: 67 across 20 wards.
Open: 64
Resolved: 3
Issue types:
- Road damage: 16
- Water drainage: 10
- Potholes: 9
- Sidewalk damage: 7
- Parking violation: 5
- Other: 5
- Debris: 4
- Illegal dumping: 3
- Property standards: 3
- Street light: 3
- Homelessness: 2
- Road maintenance: 2
- Snow/Ice: 2
- Traffic sign: 2
- Utility pole: 2
- Animal issue: 1
- Blocked storm drain: 1
- Garbage overflow: 1
- Illegal sign: 1
- Tree issue: 1
Two issues confirmed fixed by the community, one pothole was reported, marked with orange spray in 24 hours, and fully repaired within two days. The before-and-after is on the report page for anyone to see. That’s the system working.
Five interviews in two days
On March 19, I went from CBC’s studio at 6:40am to a Zoom with NOW Toronto at 4pm. Five outlets, two days:
- CBC Metro Morning — live radio, peak commuter slot
- Global News Toronto — TV segment, 6 o’clock news (at 11:20)
- TorontoToday — they ran their own test: SolveTO took 2 minutes, the city’s form took 5, 311 phone took 7
- NOW Toronto — feature article
- The Ben Mulroney Show — live national radio across Corus stations (Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg)
Every interviewer asked the same thing: why not just use 311? Because five pages of questions and 20 minutes is too much. Most people walk past the problem. SolveTO makes reporting a new issue a 30 second process and adding your voice to an existing issue a 15 second process so they don’t.
Homelessness + face redaction
This was the most important thing shipped this week, and I didn’t plan it.
A report came in of a person sleeping rough on a Toronto sidewalk. Two problems: the AI classified it as “illegal dumping” (there was no homelessness category), and the person’s face was fully visible.
That’s not acceptable. So I built both fixes the same day.
New: Homelessness / Encampment issue type. AI now recognizes sleeping bags, cardboard bedding, tents on public land. When a report is classified as homelessness:
- A help banner appears with Toronto Streets to Homes (S2H) (416-338-4766), 311 Shelter Referral, and 211
- Emails to 311 and councillors include a sensitivity note: handle with dignity
- If face redaction fails, the report doesn’t send, it waits for admin review
Fixed: Face redaction. It had been silently broken since launch. Every report was published with faces visible. Faces are now mosaic’d with 8px blocks, tight, precise, irreversible.
Full technical details in a separate post: LLMs can’t find faces.
New features
Track Your Report, every report gets a reference number like STO-A3F7K2. Click “Track” in the header, paste the reference, see your report instantly. No login needed. More details here.
Duplicate Detection, report a pothole that someone already reported within 50 metres? SolveTO catches it. One tap adds your voice instead of creating a duplicate. Enough voices and it escalates automatically.
Support Page, SolveTO runs on about $500/month, AI, hosting, email, SMS, dev tools. I’m covering it myself. No VC, no ads, no grants. If it’s been useful and you want to help keep it free: solveto.ca/support.
Blog, You’re reading the first weekly recap. Recaps every Monday from here on.
Updated pages
- Privacy Policy, data collection, anonymous usernames, AI processing, payments
- Terms of Service, use, misuse (3 strikes), report delivery, financial support
- About, new Transparency section: SolveTO is independent, reference numbers are ours not the city’s, reports forwarded via email
- FAQ, new questions on reference numbers, privacy, councillor access
Community feedback
The Twitter response this week caught me off guard. People in Burlington, Calgary, Halifax, and Montreal asking when SolveTO is coming to their city. A developer wants to build a native mobile app. Someone in Memphis reached out about a similar project. And a Toronto resident shared a before-and-after photo of a pothole fixed within 48 hours of their report.
Every one of these conversations shapes what gets built next.
What’s next
- Expanding beyond Toronto — another city is in the works
- Community verification improvements
- Continued outreach to city officials
- Next week’s recap, same time, same place.
