It seems clear that so long as the Parking Authority is controlled by Republican hacks who care more about their salaries and perks than they do about providing funds for the city, we will never get the money we want for our schools from the agency.

It would take state legislation to return control to the city.

But much of the parking authority's income is still controlled by the city. The city, as far as I know, sets parking fines.

So let's just stop feeding the beast. Let's cut parking fines dramatically and starve this monster.

Of course that would cost the city some of the $25 million it gets from the PPA. But that could be recoupled through other taxes. While no one wants to raise taxes, it makes more sense for the taxes that actually go for schools and public services to the city to be high while the taxes that go to patronage jobs to be low.

I would start by raising the parking tax on long term parking. A stiff increase would I think easily bring in twenty to thirty million dollars.

And raising the long term parking rates would have another advantage. Parking rates in Philadelphia are weirdly anomalous. It is much cheaper on a per hour basis to park all day than to park for two hours. (And sometimes, with early bird rates, it is cheaper in absolute terms to park all day than to park for three hours.) That should be flipped. Increasing the cost of long term parking would encourage commuters who live outside the city to take public transit. Decreasing the costs of short term parking--including the costs of fines for overstaying one's time at a parking meters--will encourage people to come into Center City to do some shopping for a few hours.

We can turn a big chunk of this money over to the schools. And then everyone wins, except for the Parking Authority.

I would be curious to hear what other parking agencies in other cities do, and whether our goal is to control this monster (a very important point Marc) or to reform it and make it into the publicly accountable agency it needs to be. But the amount of labor to get small steps forward is really something to consider as quite discouraging sometimes.

starving the monster is not as high a priority. (But it is a tactic we should keep up our sleeve as we move forward toward reforming the PPA.)

Congratulations on a great victory! And, I know that you probably are thinking about all the effort you put in to win what might at times seem like a small victory given how much more you still want. That was my second thought when SEPTA lost in the courts on transfers the other day. But my first thought--and I hope yours as well--is to be incredibly proud that I had a part to play in making life better for a whole bunch of people. Take that pride and keep fighting for the next victory and the one after that.

In some ways defining "victory" has to have its levels. As you said, challenging the SEPTA transfers gets everyone talking about other possibilities. Putting the Parking Authority front and center was a way to talk about school funding with a different group of people in a different context. While the real money can only lie with the City, State and School District, the dynamics there have been rather stagnant and entrenched. The Parking Authority we hoped would break some of those dynamics and get some discussion and allow a few people to come to the forefront like Rep. Mike McGeehan, or Sen. Mike Stack, and begin a more active discussion about schools. Thanks for adding that clarity.