Parking tickets on the rise in South Philly
One of the most frequently talked about problems around South Philly tends to be the issue of parking.
With the boom of restaurants on East Passyunk Avenue, new developments popping up around South Philly and the continued traffic around popular spots like “cheesesteak corner,” it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that parking tickets are on the rise around South Philly.
On an average day in Philly, more than 4,000 parking tickets are given out. But in South Philly neighborhoods specifically, there’s been a pretty big spike in tickets over the last few years.
More from The Inquirer:
Citywide, the numbers are flat, but in South Philadelphia east of Broad, tickets spiked 21 percent between 2012 and 2014. This likely reflects the parking crush as diners flocked to the burgeoning Passyunk Avenue restaurant scene.
Ticketing was also up in the Bella Vista and Southwark areas, as well as in Queen Village and Pennsport, an Inquirer analysis shows.
Want to see how many cars are ticketed in your neighborhood? The Inquirer has more data here.
Pretty sure the PPA is gaming some meters near the entrance to passyunk. This is the second ticket I’ve gotten where I’ve parked next to a clearly broken meter at night and a fully functional one in the morning. No way to fight that either…:(
What are you trying to say? It sounds like you knowingly parked next to a broken meter.
If a meter is broken, you can park next to it. Thats a PPA problem not your problem. You are just supposed to report it (which I have)
Although when you fight it, they say later that they can’t find it in their records..
Yes, you can park at a broken meter, but you still have to abide by the regulated parking times, so if it’s a 2 hour meter, that’s all you get for free.
I wish they would be even more ruthless, to be honest. There’s way too much leeway given with illegal parking, especially in the non-metered areas off Passyunk.
The area needs a comprehensive parking plan. This adhoc permit parking approach with varying times and days is really confusing and doesn’t acknowledge the fact that there is a business district nearby.
The plan should be district wide (23/24) and take into account proximity to businesses and residential density (e.g. the areas with more multifamily housing should be ineligible for permits (since multi-units flood the neighborhood with more cars than it can handle). Also, there should be timed, curbside loading zones located at regular intervals on all streets, and on every block on Passyunk Avenue.
These aren’t absolute requirements, but they are some ideas that should be implemented. The only thing that is an absolute requirement, is that better district planning must be done and we need to abandon this block by block approach to figuring out parking.
It’d be interesting to know if the increase in tickets was given to residents or to visitors. Probably not a data point that can be easily determined, but it would make a difference in how to interpret this info.
I think the number of handicapped parking spots needs to be looked at. It seems that there are lots of “handicapped” people who work construction and take part in other strenuous activities. What happens to handicapped spot when people die? When I come home at 2 AM it seems like the handicapped people are still out partying (or maybe even Jersey where they live?)
The city needs to do an audit of all handicapped spaces in South Philly. On my street alone there are 3 HP spaces and I have never seen an even mildly handicapped person use them. There is clearly a scam going on. These people are basically stealing parking spaces for themselves, adding to the problem and insulting the physically challenged. They should be arrested.
Not all disabilities are visible at a quick glance. But I do agree that an audit is needed.
Most of the cars in handicapped spots around here don’t have handicapped plates or hang tags. So how do they get to keep the spot?
I would love to see a spike in ticketing in the “South Philadelphia/West” zone… I can’t believe how many people get away with blocking the crosswalks. So inconsiderate of older residents and people with walkers/wheelchairs.
I agree with the prior sentiment. I parked legally at the end of a street and then some *bleep*hole parked in front of my car on the crosswalk basically touching my bumper. He was sticking out into the cross street. Also, a car must have replaced the original car behind me and was parked against my back bumper. I literally had .5 inches of clearance on either end. Both of the other cars were in park/had their emergency breaks on. I don’t blame the car behind me because he probably thought I had plenty of space to pull out straight in front of me before the other *bleep*hole parked illegally.
What the heck am I supposed to do…damage all cars involved trying to get out? I had to call out of work and my boss wasn’t too happy. I wonder if these people would still do that if they knew they were possibly causing other people to lose their jobs…
They would still do it. They are either too lazy to look for parking a couple blocks away or too selfish to think that what they do affects other people.
honestly, that sucks, but yeah, you can bump the cars and get out, especially the one in front of you. it’s a city, and that shit happens.
But if the PPA was so great and helped alleviate issues, wouldn’t this not happen? If the way they were currently doing things isn’t working, then isn’t it time for a change?
It is kind of disgusting how the PPA works, and this recent information proves it…they NEVER focused on the tiny streets before, and a lot of the area past 11th street was nonzone…now it’s all zoned up and you can get a ticket parking on Sartain at 11oclock in the morning. It just proves they only care about enforcement where MONEY can be made, don’t let them fool you into thinking they are doing a service…why should anyone get a ticket at 11 in the morning for a two hour zone? The entire street is empty and for some reason it’s a big deal if someone without a sticker parks there? It’s gross. I could see if it’s closer to 4 or 5 when people get home from work and need their spaces, but 11 in the morning? C’mon now, that’s just greed.
They taking food off our tables, and money out of our local economy. Something needs to be done.
typically the residents of a block can lobby for different hours, so if you don’t like the hours, request a change.
This is true in theory, but hardly in execution. It’s almost impossible to get the times changed…
Yeah they are good for issuing tickets to residents etc.but we have a business been there for ages at the end of our street and in recent years..it’s been awful they got cars..vans, trucks parked in front of Reed and hey put cars on the pavement..its so bad no one can see to turn onto Reed street..and complaints to PPS, committee men, police doesn’t help..they do what the hell they want..i guess until someone gets hit as cars go pretty fast down this cross street..so i think more emphasis on checkout out businesses who are abusing the right of being on residential streets should be focused on more..these places were reasonable back in the day but today they don’t fit in with the big a$$ vechicles u cannot see thru and around.. do something city and PPA.