I´ve only gotten one ticket from the Philadelphia Parking Authority, but I remain bitter about it today. I was parked on Rittenhouse Square where I attend a two hour meeting once a week. Naturally, and for no reason other than spite and greed, you cannot pay for more than two hours at a time on the parking meter. At 7:03, I fed eight quarters into the beast to get my measly two hours. The meeting ran just a bit long, and I wasn´t able to get back to the car until 9:05. All of two minutes late, I already had a violation on my windshield.
Now that´s not the part I´m bitter about: well, not entirely. I mean, technically I was late to feed the meter so I can´t really complain about the ticket. The thing that steams me to this day is that the PPA ticketer was nowhere in sight. Now mind you, Rittenhouse Square is an extremely long block surrounding a park. It takes more than a minute simply to walk around the corner from where my car was parked. In order to have ticketed me and then disappear from sight, the ticketing agent must have been greedily watching my meter like a child predator eyeing a grade school playground and writing the ticket the very second it ticked to zero. Then, having done his or her nasty business on my windshield, this drooling sadist sprinted away at full speed, perhaps to hide behind a tree in the park to laugh as I picked up my $26 ticket.
"Parking Wars" proves that there is never a shortage of ideas when it comes to reality television, only a shortage of good ideas. The show tracks the employees of the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) as they worm their way through the city, raising funds for the mostly dysfunctional city government. Cameras follow workers from all aspects of this fascist organization, from the ticketers who walk the street, to the people who put boots on cars, to the clerks at the impound lot.
As loathsome as the PPA is, many of its employees, unsurprisingly, are quite likable, and the show´s producers do their best to portray them all in a positive light. This highlights the dual and dueling appeals of the series. First, it´s easy to sympathize with the workers as they are constantly abused by irate drivers who always have excuses for why they have been illegally ticketed or booted or towed. On the other hand, it´s equally as easy to root for the citizens who jeer the employees as they enforce the city´s Byzantine and inscrutable parking laws. The signs in Philadelphia are not designed to be comprehended: arrows point in directions that have only a tangential relationship to the areas they are intended to indicate. Cars must be moved constantly throughout the day as rules change almost by the hour. Parking is absurdly expensive in the city and incredibly difficult to come by in virtually every section, so tempers understandably run high.
I´ve only gotten one ticket from the Philadelphia Parking Authority, but I remain bitter about it today. I was parked on Rittenhouse Square where I attend a two hour meeting once a week. Naturally, and for no reason other than spite and greed, you cannot pay for more than two hours at a time on the parking meter. At 7:03, I fed eight quarters into the beast to get my measly two hours. The meeting ran just a bit long, and I wasn´t able to get back to the car until 9:05. All of two minutes late, I already had a violation on my windshield.
Now that´s not the part I´m bitter about: well, not entirely. I mean, technically I was late to feed the meter so I can´t really complain about the ticket. The thing that steams me to this day is that the PPA ticketer was nowhere in sight. Now mind you, Rittenhouse Square is an extremely long block surrounding a park. It takes more than a minute simply to walk around the corner from where my car was parked. In order to have ticketed me and then disappear from sight, the ticketing agent must have been greedily watching my meter like a child predator eyeing a grade school playground and writing the ticket the very second it ticked to zero. Then, having done his or her nasty business on my windshield, this drooling sadist sprinted away at full speed, perhaps to hide behind a tree in the park to laugh as I picked up my $26 ticket.
"Parking Wars" proves that there is never a shortage of ideas when it comes to reality television, only a shortage of good ideas. The show tracks the employees of the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) as they worm their way through the city, raising funds for the mostly dysfunctional city government. Cameras follow workers from all aspects of this fascist organization, from the ticketers who walk the street, to the people who put boots on cars, to the clerks at the impound lot.
As loathsome as the PPA is, many of its employees, unsurprisingly, are quite likable, and the show´s producers do their best to portray them all in a positive light. This highlights the dual and dueling appeals of the series. First, it´s easy to sympathize with the workers as they are constantly abused by irate drivers who always have excuses for why they have been illegally ticketed or booted or towed. On the other hand, it´s equally as easy to root for the citizens who jeer the employees as they enforce the city´s Byzantine and inscrutable parking laws. The signs in Philadelphia are not designed to be comprehended: arrows point in directions that have only a tangential relationship to the areas they are intended to indicate. Cars must be moved constantly throughout the day as rules change almost by the hour. Parking is absurdly expensive in the city and incredibly difficult to come by in virtually every section, so tempers understandably run high.
No comments:
Post a Comment