Amanda Please | No need for parking wars

When I decided to attend Penn, my dad looked down on me through his glasses, his bald head glistening in the harsh light, and said, “Amanda, I told you I didn’t want to spend another cent in Philadelphia.”

A congratulations would have sufficed, but I couldn’t say I blamed him for his reaction. After all, we barely made it out of the city with our dignity, much less our car. The Philadelphia Parking Authority, with its strict regulations, is to blame.

The saga of my family’s hatred toward Philly began last winter break. After falling in love with Penn, my family parked the car on the street about 10 minutes away from campus, fed the meter and then went off to explore the city. All was well among the Wolkin clan until we came back to find that our white Honda Accord had seemingly disappeared from its spot.

We walked up and down the street, hoping that the car had grown red stripes and was merely playing a “Where’s Waldo?” game with us. Unfortunately, we did not splurge for the heated seats, pull-down TV screens or camouflage features.

Conveniently, a valet at a nearby restaurant who had been watching us with a smug smile stopped us after our fifth lap up and down the street, offering us the number of the PPA’s towing lot — which he had on speed dial. Apparently, we weren’t the first out-of-towners who had exceeded the two-hour meter limit by a mere three minutes and were now parking in the restaurant’s valet zone.

The ensuing episode of rescuing our Honda has since become a family classic, but at the time was anything but amusing. My dad refused to pay the money for a taxi, and so we began the five-mile trek to the impound lot. Naturally, the skies opened up, we got lost, walked through the wrong part of town where a police officer told us we needed “to get out before dark,” asked for directions at a BBQ restaurant where we talked to a man dressed in a pig costume and then finally received a ride from a kind man who was missing his front teeth. We retrieved the car before the impound lot closed — but only after paying an expensive ticket and towing fee.

Ah, the City of Brotherly Love.

Shortly after the trip to Philly, I was channel surfing when my glazed-over eyes suddenly became affixed to an awfully familiar impound lot. As I soon discovered, there is an actual show called “Parking Wars” that follows the PPA as they boot, tow and ticket cars around the city. Apparently, that’s entertainment.

Something is rotten in the state of Pennsylvania.

One authority should not have the power to control an entire city’s parking regulations and in the process enrage its local citizens. The PPA has 15 Facebook groups against them, totaling up to 3,629 members — and scares away tourists like my family.

And for what? According to a Philadelphia Inquirer report from 2007, the PPA generates $192 million from the city’s drivers and then returns less than $1 million of that to the city’s general fund. One has to wonder where the remainder of that money goes … to purchase more car boots and make more people’s lives miserable?

Certainly a bustling city like Philadelphia needs some sort of parking authority, but a parking dictatorship that seems more concerned with generating TV entertainment than generating respect among its local citizens is not the answer. No car should be towed after exceeding its toll time by a minute. Unfortunately, looking at the Facebook groups, my family’s story is not unusual.

And the worst part? My dad finally agreed to let me go to Penn — but I’ll never be allowed to have a car on campus.

Amanda Wolkin is a College freshman from Atlanta. Her e-mail address is wolkin@theDP.com. Amanda Please appears on alternate Wednesdays.

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