His complaint app works better than 311. The city is about to kill it

Complaining to the city has never been easier, thanks to Patrick McCabe.

The electrical engineer’s Solve SF app lets users file 311 reports about issues like graffiti or sidewalk poop in as little as 10 seconds, roughly five times faster than the city’s official app. It’s McCabe’s passion project, it’s free to use, and has been boosted online by the political organization GrowSF.

But the city is about to kill the vital mechanism the app runs on.

Officials from the city administrator’s office on May 13 told McCabe, who lives near the Castro, they’re shutting down the Open 311 API program, which allows third-party apps and other programs to pull from and send data to the city’s 311 service. 

Since Solve SF’s Jan. 29 launch, over 900 people have downloaded the app for iPhone and Android, logging over 16,000 311 reports for illegally parked cars and other problems. But on July 12, McCabe’s creation will be forced to shut down when the API does.

McCabe says he’s sunk over 500 hours into building the product he believes could be the future of reporting and fixing quality-of-life issues. He was frustrated with the official 311 app, but when he learned about the API, he felt he had a “duty” to create a more streamlined way to report issues to the city. He quit his engineering consultant day job in March to work full-time on it. But it’s all about to go up in smoke.

“It will cease to exist,” McCabe said.

Officials say they have to shut down the API, as it’s become too costly to maintain, but couldn’t give an estimate on how much. What’s more, the API has just one user: McCabe. The API also becomes more outdated and difficult to maintain each time the official 311 mobile app is updated. The 311 app and phone line will be unaffected by the API shutdown.

“It would have to be fully rebuilt,” a spokesperson for the city administrator’s office said. “It would be a huge lift.”

Through the app, users take a photo of whatever’s wrong and AI fills in description boxes and selects the category an issue falls under, which would otherwise be done manually in the official app. It takes 10 seconds to file a report through Solve SF, compared to roughly a minute through the city app, according to The Standard’s field tests of both products.

Cathy Targett, a volunteer with trash pickup group Refuse Refuse, said she’s used the Solve SF app to make dozens of 311 reports since January and vastly prefers it over the city’s official app. The city option would sometimes get her GPS location wrong, and having to scroll down to pick a category her complaint fell under was a headache. Losing Solve SF would be “really unfortunate,” she said. 

“It’d be like going back to instant coffee after having Equator Coffee,” the retired 66-year-old said.

Vincent Yuen, who leads Refuse Refuse and sits on the city’s Commission on the Environment, said those extra 40 seconds saved make all the difference for him.

“I can just snap a pic while I’m on Muni or when I’m walking to pick up my kid from school and I need to be there,” he said. “It’s two or three clicks, instead of 12.”

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, who praised the app in a recent X post, said he uses Solve SF daily to report graffiti and cars parked at red curbs. He’s a fan of how the AI fills in license plate numbers from a photo. He was baffled when he learned about the city’s move to kill its 311 API.

“It’s a head-scratcher.” he said. “Like, why now?”

Solve SF’s AI can get reports wrong, officials claimed, so staff have to manually fix reports, costing time and money. McCabe said he’s unaware of any times when the city has had to fix 311 reports made through his app.

“They have never told me that, nor have I seen it,” he said in a text.

Just 7% of 311 reports this year have been made through McCabe’s app. Of 336,500 service requests made to 311 so far in 2025, 16,278 have been made through Solve SF, while 231,793 were made through the official 311 app. The remainder of the complaints were made via phone and the 311 website.

The timing couldn’t be worse for McCabe. He thinks that in a year, Solve SF could be the most popular way for people to make 311 reports. McCabe projects his growth optimistically, and he does not appear to have solid marketing or growth plans. 

Still, it hasn’t taken long for Solve SF to make an impact. Since its January launch, 44% of all graffiti requests near Valencia Street and 21% of reports of illegally parked cars in the Richmond were made through Solve SF, according to the app’s online dashboard. Officials for 311 said McCabe’s data is accurate. 

“It’s existed for four months and it’s doing double-digit numbers,” McCabe said. “No one’s tried to replace the full 311 app experience.”