Hot Parking Action To Debut Tonight

Tonight is the premiere of the A&E documentary on the Philadelphia Parking Authority, Parking Wars. In addition to apparently featuring Cafe Loftus as nice background scenery, the show also follows around meter maids (are we allowed to call them that anymore?), tow truck drivers, the people who put the boot on cars and people who work at the impound lot.

Sadly, a tow truck driver — who liked “all the ladies” he met on the job — profiled on the show passed away after filming. There’s also ticket writer Jeff, who produces hip hop tracks and plays in a punk band. Neat!

Anyway, the show premieres tonight at 10 on A&E, which apparently (a) still exists and (b) has shows other than Biography and that awesome word-for-word adaptation the BBC did of Pride & Prejudice. (That was on A&E, right?)

The Inquirer’s Michael D. Schaffer has more. Also, be sure to check out the glossary. I’m going to use “eating beef jerky” as much as I can in conversation now.

How Many Philadelphians Does It Take To Use A Parking Meter?

At Headhouse Square recently, the Philadelphia Parking Authority did pretty much the first good thing it’s ever done¹, replacing those normal meters that need quarters that you don’t have with a bunch of those fancy new meters that take bills, credit cards and change you don’t have.

The machines aren’t right in front of spaces, but there are six of them for the 44 spaces at 2nd and South. The PPA likes the new machines because it will be alerted when there are problems (with Wi-Fi??) and it frees up sidewalk space for, you know, walkin’.

We Philadelphians hate the machines because we’re too fucking stupid to use them. The Inquirer’s Katie Stuhldreher in my favorite story of the day:

“I’ve lived around here a long time and I just want to know what the heck is going on. What was wrong with the old meters?” said Hilda Schoenwetter, a retired teacher who parks frequently at Head House Square. [...]

Ed Gray, a driver looking for a space, said he didn’t like having to walk over to the meter in the middle of the block instead of having one right at his parking space.

Maryann Dolan, seeking a space so she could bring her dog in for a doctor’s appointment, looked at one new meter and said: “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I think it’s just ridiculous.”

Yeah, those meters sure are hard. So hard that 95 percent of Portland’s meters use the technology and the city has descended into a pit of lawlessness. The real problem mentioned in the article, where a machine wouldn’t take a woman’s credit card, forced the woman to go into Wawa to get change… which is what she had to do with the old meters.

(Oh, yea, the other problem is you now are pretty much guaranteed a ticket if you run over your time limit, since it’s so much easier for the meter maids to write ‘em. So, yeah, that sucks.)

Anyway, that’s not to say the PPA did everything right here.

In order to ease some of the initial confusion about the machines, the Parking Authority assigned “meter greeters” for the first week of operation to explain how the new meters work. But now Philadelphians are on their own.

I think it might be time to just blow up the entire city and start over.

¹ I don’t really know what I’m basing this on, but as a rule, pretty much every government organization does only one or two good things every 50 years, if ever.

New parking meters on Head House Square confuse many [Inquirer]

Lawyer Denies Foo Fighting

The case of did-the-restaurateur cause-a-miscarriage has gotten a little sticker in the past few days. As you probably heard, chef/restaurateur Susanna Foo was arrested Friday night and charged with assaulting a meter maid and related offenses. Later that weekend, the officer had a miscarriage.

The Inquirer came forth with a story saying, uh, it’d be pretty hard to cause a miscarriage. (Then the Inky referenced the Siege of Leningrad, to make sure the point sunk in.)

Yesterday, Foo’s preliminary hearing was delayed until Nov. 20. Foo’s lawyer, Richard DeSipio, said his client never hit anyone, even coming so far as saying the woman is just looking for some cash.

The defense, though, has nine eyewitnesses prepared to testify that Foo never hit Juanita Lewis, the PPA worker. Dun dun dun!

More on this as it develops — and by “as it develops,” I mean “next month.”

Foo’s Lawyer: Officer Claiming Injury Wants Money [NBC 10]
Susanna Foo’s alleged victim has miscarriage [Inquirer]