Tickets = revenue for the city.
In Philadelphia, there is no street cleaning. Limited budget I guess? However recently, the city has received stimulus money to repave all of West Philadelphia. It's kind of nice, actually -- no more pot holes! Except when they do it, they put signs out about the days they will be paving about 24-48 hours in advance at most. Pity the poor soul who was out of town and didn't know this was going to happen!
But it gets even better. See, if you do not move your car, they will move it for you to another location in West Philadelphia. They are supposed to keep track of where they move your car, and there is supposed to be a number you can call so you can find your car. However this number - as far as I can tell - is not published anywhere, and I'm not sure it actually exists.
Therefore, if your car is moved, you will likely spend several hours of your time hoofing it all over West Philly trying to find it.
You know, there's a free municipal parking lot right down the street from where I live. You'd think that the city could just put the cars there, you know, since it OWNS the parking lot. But nooooooo.
Do they ticket people? Hells no! Why actually *increase* city revenue? They might have to pay someone to do that! That would be intelligent! They just
I won't go into the fact that often the city changes the dates posted on the signs telling you to move your car, sometimes the morning the construction crews arrive....
I suppose Philadelphia is quite charming in it's own incompetently run kind of way. It does make me grateful that we sprang for a house with a garage, though.
7 Pearls of Wisdom:
it once took a friend two days before they found their car. of course the police said it was on one street which it was not. the tow guy said it was on another street which it was not. but it was on another street.
Garages are nice. They're ideal places to store visiting in-laws.
Man, but I thought Philadelphia was kidding about the "we'll move your car... somewhere" part. I'd honestly rather the car wind up in a tow lot, assuming that, you know, the city could tell me *which* tow lot.
Oh, Philly.
(But Chicago street cleaning was annoying, too. The signs went up at a totally random schedule, and I almost never saw them in time to move the car, and parking in HP was so tight that it could take an hour of circling to find another spot, and mannnn, the tickets were over $100, weren't they? At least Philly tickets are cheap.)
(New Orleans just waits for a rain.)
That's happened to several people I know! I think I would have a stroke -- it's crazy that they don't just put them in the lot!
I drive my car about once a week, sometimes every other week, and I can't even remember where *I* left it half the time, let alone have to worry about where someone else put it! Plus that means I'd probably never see the notices they post.
Oh my god, that happened to me and Brodie on Friday! We parked the car Wednesday night and there were absolutely NO SIGNS anywhere suggesting it might get repaved. We come to use it on Friday night (a whole 48 hours later) and the car is gone and the street is repaved. We spent two hours and ten phone calls to three agencies looking for it, and only out of my own sheer luck (and because I have a bicycle) did I find it.
HATEFUL business. How did you know this was happening? I hope you did not have something similar happen to you.
Oh! I forgot that you probably saw the facebook comment I put up that night. I left for Rehoboth beach all weekend and totally forgot I had even posted. That might be why you know about this... but I still want to hear more if you have more info!! I would REALLY like to avoid having this happen again!
"Except when they do it, they put signs out about the days they will be paving about 24-48 hours in advance at most."
In Michigan they put up orange traffic barrels 1-2 weeks before construction starts. So traffic is backed up for 2 weeks before anything is getting done!
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