RIP Traffic Court, pit of political patronage

Philadelphia Traffic Court died Tuesday after a decades-long illness. The cause of death: corruption. It was 48. Shepherded to its grave by a statewide ballot measure, the court was preceded in death by other antiquated city patronage mills like the Clerk of Quarter Sessions (2010) and the Board of Revision of Taxes (also 2010, although after only four months in the grave, that one rose again).