I appreciate the very thorough response. There's probably 5 or 6 things in here that I didn't know. This is just an insane number of steps to expect citizens to go through, but that does seem to be par for the course for city government.

I work at an agency for a different company, and my answer would be to shop around. Car insurance rates are super dependent on location and company (Allstate just might not be that competitive in Fishtown). Definitely look around and see what's out there (incidentally, at least with my company, Fairmount is a very low cost place to insure a car, at least by Philly standards).

Yeah, I was thinking something to the scale of those planters there were put in at 15th and Market. Maybe if I just took some and left them no one would bother to move them ...

That's disheartening, but not unexpected. It's just insane that someone can look at that intersection and not see that parking in or near that crosswalk is dangerous because it blocks people leaving the park from being visible to the drivers leaving the distant stop sign (the southbound one). That way, drivers can build up a good head of steam before kids and families try to walk out between the cars blocking the crosswalk. Even a couple planters to maintain distance would be incredibly helpful.

I am interested in hearing about this group, though. If numbers can help, I'll help any way I can.

I hadn't considered the Conservancy; that's a really good suggestion.

I don't know. It was there so briefly that I never even saw it.

So every time a piece of infrastructure or bollard or barricade goes up, it was explicitly authorized by council? That seems inefficient.

In terms of reporting, that's a losing game. Saturday, two cops directing traffic there just watched someone park in the crosswalk. As long as it's physically possible to put a car there, someone will. And PPD wouldn't have time, even if they cared.

Or both!

Take my upvote and gtfo :-)

That's so weird. It's like people who spend their lives associating with people who carry guns tend to get shot more.

I find the passive construction here strange. "Gunfire broke out"; I might put "Asshole starts shooting" to give the headline a bit more punch.

Yeah, but it wasn't on the trolley, so the initial point stands.

I find this resonating with me at least a little more than the one with the damn potholes. Trying to get some of that "The Rent is Too Damn High" energy.

I eagerly await news of the first actual ticket. I wonder if it will happen this year.

I'd love it if we could trust drivers to keep their cars out of the park without ugly ass barriers, but it seems we just can't have anything nice.

You'll see that a ton. It goes well with several digits being obscured by an FOP sticker.

It would be significantly better than what we have now.

Yeah, but his schtick is removing obstructions that are pretending to be benign. The assholes are significantly more blatant here.

The permit parking is whatever, I guess (although it's annoying), but people are doing this to park in bus loading zones, crosswalks, sidewalks, bike lanes or wherever. That stuff is dangerous and it seems no one in charge seems to care about our safety.

Ahhh, but if you were allowed to just tow without the ticket...

That's fair. I thought you were against removal of the vehicle; we're on the same page.

You would have to put a fake plate, call the cops, cross your fingers that they come out and don't notice that the plate probably doesn't match the car, hope they ticket it, and then report the illegally parked vehicle to the police for towing. By that point, the driver has gotten at least 4-5 hours of free, illegal parking. Why would anyone follow the rules?

So do you have a suggestion of what to do about the cars with the removed plates and the obscured (totally by random chance) VIN's that just park wherever?

I don't see too many driving with no tags, just parked. Are you seeing a lot of cars driving around without tags?

>Locally, the Philadelphia Parking Authority told NBC10 that cars with the VIN numbers covered or a license plate missing will be ticketed and towed.

This part is a pure lie. I've been told by both PPA and PPD that there's nothing they can do if the plate is missing and the VIN is covered. This is after reporting the same vehicle a couple of times a week for over a year.