If it's not an emergency, it's 311. the new hotline links residents to virtually every city department and service.

In January 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans for the creation of a 311 Citizen Service Center. Such a center was to be developed in order to make New York City government more accessible to its constituents by enabling people to request and receive information and city government services by calling one simple number. After the Mayor's announcement, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications ("DoITT") began working to design a customer service based system and to phase in operation of the 311 Citizen Service Center.

The first publicly visible phase of 311 customer service began in October 2002 when hotline staff of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development were transferred to the 311 office at 59 Maiden Lane. Since then the hotlines of additional city agencies (DEP, DSNY, DOT, DOB, MAC, DCA, DOE Workforce One Line, DoITT and DORIS) have been phased into 311. In December 2002, call-takers were trained and prepared to respond to residents in the instance that a transit strike occurred.

On Feb. 27, 2003 the NYPD was phased into 311 when it transferred various quality of life hotlines. The most recent step of the phased in implementation of the 311 system took place March 9, 2003 when the 311 phone line was activated.

How 311 works
· 311 allows customers to call one easy-to-remember number in order to receive information and access city government services.
· Call takers answer questions, take service requests and refer callers to government agencies.
· All calls to 311 are answered by a live operator, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
· Immediate access to language translation services in over 170 languages is available.
· Service requests made via 311 are electronically transferred to relevant agencies for direct service. For example, each police precinct in the City has been equipped with computer terminal dedicated to 311, so that the police can appropriately respond to quality of life complaints.

You can call 311 to:
· Find out if alternate side of the street parking is in effect
· Report quality of life complaints, such as loud noise, blocked driveways, disorderly youths, among others.
· Find the phone number of an employee of the City's Office of Management and Budget
· Find your neighborhood library and its operating hours
· Find out how to become a Parks Department lifeguard
· Give the Mayor your opinion
· Report a pothole or street light that needs to be fixed
· Find out about garbage collection
· And much more.

Key Benefits of 311
· 311 enables the city to do more with less. The mayor and governmental officials have real time data on requests, complaints and services made which will allow for better and immediate allocation of resources and personnel.
In the long term, the data generated by 311 will improve the city's ability to allocate resources and personnel across agencies.
· 311 helps put people in touch with city government while providing the Mayor and governmental officials with another method for hearing the needs and demands of the city residents.
· 311 improves governmental efficiency by replacing processes performed on paper with computerization and by providing technology and training to many agencies.
· Operating a single call center for all customer needs is far more efficient than many agency-based centers throughout the city.
· About 200 staff from call centers previously operated by city agencies has been consolidated at the 311 cente. There is also an overflow site in Long Island City.
· All call takers and supervisors participated in an extensive 6-week training program which included customer service, technology, and governmental information training.
· There is a 1 to 12 ratio of supervisors to call takers on the floor.
· Up to 170 call takers respond to calls on a given shift.

Phone Numbers for 311
· In any borough of New York City call 311.
· Outside of New York City call (212) NEW-YORK.
· The TDY Number is (212) 504-4115.
· As always, callers should call 911 for emergencies.