Why I hate the PPA

Look, I get it. If you park at a spot and don't donate your change, you should get a ticket. Ditto for parking in handicap spaces, double parking, parking in a bike lane, etc. In Louisville, if you were 5 minutes late getting to your car, no problem. A quarter got you 20 minutes, and, in general, the rules made sense. Then I moved to Philadelphia, where parking is apparently a serious civic matter. Here is a brief sampling of some of our run-ins with the PPA.
1. DH was 1 minute over his allotted time at a meter. When he arrived, the ticket was already on the windshield and not a PPA officer in sight. I admit, we were at fault, but I wonder if the ticket was on the car maybe a little early.
2. DH dropped off Max at doggy daycare, which required 20 seconds inside the building. Got back to the car, and a PPA vehicle was pulling up, but no ticket was on the car. 6 weeks later, we get a citation in the mail for failure to pay a parking ticket on time. Uh, don't you actually have to give the ticket, PPA? We got that one overturned.
3. DH parked at a meter that didn't require feeding until 9am. When he got there at 8:55, there was already a ticket. Also got that one overturned.
4. Parking on East-West streets is free on Sundays, while North-South streets charge at the regular rate. Except for Chestnut St, which is apparently exempt from the free Sundays rule, and also happens to be the second closest street to the gym and also near several churches.
5. I pulled up to a meter at the gym and I had 6 quarters, good for an hour and a half. I put the first two in, and got my :30. Then I put the 3rd in: the meter still read :30. This happens often in Philly because the meters themselves are possessed. So, I put in another quarter, still :30. Now I am angry because this has cost me 30 good work-out minutes. Happily, I saw a PPA official walking up the sidewalk towards me. When I asked her how to go about getting my money back from the messed up meter, her comment was "well, you can always move to a meter that isn't broken." Great, then I can lose all four quarters to the evil PPA.

The moral of the story is that the PPA is a little too gung-ho in this city. They are nearly omni-present because of their huge numbers of employees (DH's theory is that it keeps unemployment artificially low, like the professional gas pumpers in New Jersey) , and they have been known to write tickets for unexpired meters, tow cars parked legally, etc. Interestingly, the reason there are such large numbers is that they are supposed to be donating a large portion of their profit to the schools, public transportation, and the airport. However, despite revenue going up 50% in the last 5 years, the schools have not received a dime ($4 million was promised). The Inquirer ran a great series of articles on this recently; for a good one, click here.

Triathlon training, week 5: ran 3.25 mi, bike 18.65 mi, swam 3700 yards. totals 26.65/58.55/10600. To think, I used to swim that in a day, now it's been 5 weeks. Sheesh.