Comment by gshulegaard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gshulegaard | Hacker News Reader

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As someone relatively new to Philly, I am not at all surprised by the need for relocation towing. In the immediate Philadelphia metro area, but outside center city parking is extremely sparse. It's not uncommon for me to help squeeze neighbors into barely large enough parallel parking spots (by waving them in) at midnight. Some of these folks live more than 6 blocks away and purportedly were looking for parking after getting off work for an hour or longer.

Philadelphia is also the first place I have lived where parking in the center median of major thoroughfares is normal:

https://www.google.com/search?q=philadelphia+center+median+p...

Speaking of, I live a block off South Broad Street (most of the images in the link) and not too long ago there was a marathon that required clearing of that street of all parked cars for its entire length. It _was_ well communicated, well in advance but you can imagine that if parking is tight when the street side parking _and_ the center median is chalk full of cars, relocating is difficult. I don't know if any cars were relocation towed, but I know the night before the event I still saw some cars parked on Broad.

I still think there are communications issues, the city should have a way for owners to find their car. But I also think it's a bit more complex than your first take. Communication is hard and at the scale of Philadelphia I am not too surprised that there are cases where things can go awry between all the various bureaucracies you have to interact with in something like this. I also think it's pretty reasonable that the lawsuit is looking to force improvements, not do away with the system.

My car got towed while I was on a trip during that race a few years ago when I lived off of South Broad Street (:

I was parked in the middle of Broad and Snyder (in this section of South Philly it’s acceptable to park illegally in the middle of the street) because I couldn’t find another spot and had a flight to catch.

Came back a week later, car gone. Walked around for a couple hours then approached a cop parked nearby. After quite a bit of back and forth on the radio he told me my car was parked over 20 blocks away, curtesy tow.

Another time I parked on a Thursday, slept through a hangover on Saturday and missed the police posting for a street festival. That was some ordeal getting it back on Sunday. Took a couple hours and I think $250 or so.

Was this comment written by GPT-3, or is it just contrarian for contrarianism's sake? Posted signs stating parking restrictions is the standard way of communicating parking restrictions, temporary or permanent. The notice window doesn't even have to be that long, although it's nice for it to be so that people can plan ahead. For example, in Boston it is illegal to stay parked in the same spot for more than 72 hours, so the city puts up signs at least 3 days ahead of time. If a car is still parked somewhere, it has either violated the temporary restriction or the 72 hour rule. Also if a car is towed, it's towed to a city lot rather than a random street. Getting your car out of a tow lot sucks but at least it's predictable. Problem solved - there is nothing "complex" about this.

In Philly, residents can get permits to park near their home for an unlimited time. So you could leave for a week's vacation and have your car "courtesy towed" from right outside your house by the time you got back even with 72 hours notice.

The applications for those permits seem like an opportune time to collect an email/phone to send neighborhood notices to, and layout out expectations for the minimum time for those notices. I'm all for better ways of contacting vehicle owners. Posted notices are just a good first pass to contrast with the current insanity.

This makes me incurably angry as longtime resident of South Philly. You sound like your head is in the clouds to a local. Why? Because our city operates roughly above the 3rd world level.

Nobody puts signs up

Nobody gives notice

Nobody gives a good God dammed.

Park where you can, hope your car is there tomorrow, hope there isn't a gas leak, road collapse or towed randomly

Its so absurd we had a TV show called Parking Wars.

I was courtesy towed last week. I spend a year backing down a narrow (one car width) alley because we had a pothole the size of Alaska. I pushed an abandoned car onto broad street during rush hour to get it towed after 6 months. I had my car towed because of a local celebrity funeral. All my tires were slashed during the BLM riots. My friends car was flipped at the Phillies parade, anothwrs at the eagles rally. I've gotten hit with a baseball bat for asking someone to move their car.

Welcome to hell

Edit: did I mention our parking "authority" is extremely predatory, run as a nepotism program for local Republicans, siphons money from the city and has been routinely found to be absolutely kafkaesque. So bad they actually had their own petty court removed for being a essentially kangaroo court?

I don't know why my comment would make you angry. I'm not saying "everything is fine", rather pointing out how it works in other cities, as an example of some sanity to push for. The comment I was responding to was full of handwavey reasons why any sort of change would be too complicated, essentially justifying the status quo. I would think that if you wanted reform, that is the type of thing what would make you angry.

It makes me angry in the same way a kid from Kentucky may say "why don't the Palestinians and Jews just get along ".

There's a whole history with parking here.

Yes, if our city was even one iota of a normal place we would expect these things. Instead we drop our pants and bend over because, well actually I don't know why we do, Stockholm syndrome?

I mean sure, but we're talking about a government agency that should theoretically answer to the people, whether through the democratic process, or (as in the article) eventually through the courts. Also as bad as they apparently are, I wouldn't think the parking deputies are holding a grudge against residents for filling the streets or something. Rather they're just motivated by money/expedience, and constrained by what they can get away with.

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