Monica Yant Kinney: Car moved to fix street? Good luck finding it again

When I lived in Old City, I would occasionally awake to the sound of workmen hollering into bullhorns that they were towing cars on my block.

I always wondered what happened to drivers who slept through the warnings.

If your vehicle is towed by the dreaded Philadelphia Parking Authority, at least you know to go to the loathsome Impound Lot. Would you believe me if I told you that it's standard procedure for the Streets Department to merely move cars to any available spot - two blocks away, three, four, or more - and presume that mystified owners will have the sense to find them?

For proof, I bring you the tale of Alexander "Alec" Nelson, who just spent 11 days searching for his 2003 silver Ford Focus.

Nelson, 24, has a degree in music education and plays the alto sax. He's substitute-teaching while searching for his dream job as a band director. He splits his time between his family's home in Ardmore and a friend's place at 11th Street and Passyunk Avenue.

Nelson pulled into South Philly just before midnight Nov. 1 and slid into the last spot on the 1100 block of Watkins Street.

"The whole street was full of cars," he recalled. "I didn't see any 'No Parking' signs."

(This happens. Some city residents get so irked by paving projects that they rip down the notices. Some blocks have few poles on which signs can be posted.)

The next day, Alec found only a milling crew at work on an empty block. He called the Third District police, who referred him to the Fourth District, where an officer offered this sage advice:

Sometimes, the Streets Department "tells us where they put the cars. Sometimes they don't. Go look around the neighborhood. It should be somewhere."

Surprised by the blase response, Nelson nonetheless biked down side streets and main drags every afternoon after teaching.

"I started where I parked and moved outward," he recalled. "I worked the grid and rode until it got too dark."

After a few days and no Focus, Nelson prevailed upon a city worker for the name of the company that had towed his car. But no company by that name seemed to exist.

By Nov. 6, Nelson and his mother were so frustrated they again called the police, who recommended reporting the car stolen.

"The police officer . . . said if we got really lucky, the city dropped the car in an illegal spot and it would be towed to the Impound Lot," Wenonah Nelson said. "If we reported it stolen, we could get the fines waived when they found it."

But the car didn't materialize.

On Nov. 11, Wenonah Nelson used a day off from her pediatric practice to shift the search into high gear. She called The Inquirer.

"We're now 10 days of having no idea where this car is," she told me by phone.

I e-mailed always-helpful Deputy Streets Commissioner Stephen Buckley, who said Streets Department contractors "relocated" 5,000 cars a year as part of road maintenance. Each time, the vehicle's location is provided to the nearest police district.

"According to the Third District," he shared, "the car was towed to the 1700 block of South 12th Street."

(Buckley said he did not know how information about a car that had been moved in the Fourth District wound up with the Third.)

Nelson was dubious, but rushed to the spot.

"That was one of the first places I looked," he said, calling from the block. "It wasn't there then. It's not there now."

The next day, Buckley went back at it. Perhaps someone had misread the file? In short order, a highway engineer found Nelson's car one block away, at 1605 S. 12th St.

"Maybe I missed it, but my friends and I were on that block a bunch of times," Nelson said after finding his Focus. "The cynical side of me thinks it wasn't there to begin with."

(Buckley doubted that, noting that "a towing company would lose its contract" for moving a car twice to cover a mistake. Still, he acknowledged that cars did occasionally go temporarily missing. Next year, signs will state more clearly how owners can find towed vehicles.)

As excited as he was to be reunited with his ride, Nelson had to laugh at his parting gift from the city:

"When I got the car back," he said, "one of the tires was flat."

Streets Dept. dude, where's my car?

It's bad enough when the Parking Authority tows your car and you have to schlep to the impound lot. But Streets Department contractors just take it "somewhere" nearby. Monica Yant Kinney, B2.