Why is the Philadelphia Parking Authority ticketing cars for blocking street sweepers — on streets the city doesn’t actually sweep 75 percent of the time? Ryan Briggs and Aaron Moselle answer this question on WHYY’s The Why. Listen now and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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Outside of Dr. Louis Brown’s dermatology clinic in Northeast Philadelphia, a string of “no parking” signs warn drivers to stay off the block on Tuesday mornings. The parking lanes on this stretch of Rising Sun Avenue are supposed to be kept clear so city street sweepers can clean trash out of the curb line between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Brown, a block captain who’s had his business on the street for 25 years, says the $31 tickets his unlucky clients receive from the Philadelphia Parking Authority each Tuesday are very real. But the street sweepers themselves? Not so much.

“It’s not to say it isn’t done,” he said. “But I haven’t seen them come by in years.”

Brown admits he’s not always in his clinic by 7 a.m. to watch the mechanical brooms rumble by. But there’s plenty of evidence left behind when sweepers don’t materialize: namely, litter.

“I sweep the block, especially after trash day on Mondays,” he said. “On Tuesdays, when the streets are supposed to be swept, it doesn’t appear they have been.”

WHYY and PlanPhilly reporters deployed to these business corridors didn’t have much more luck spotting the city’s cleaning crews. Over the course of one week in December 2018, the reporters did not observe any street sweepers on any of the posted routes before, during, and after the posted “no parking” hours.

But even if sweepers don’t show up consistently, The Philadelphia Parking Authority’s agents do.

Between 2007 and 2017, the state parking enforcement agency issued over 148,000 tickets to drivers for failing to move their cars on days designated for street sweeping, according to PPA records. Together, these tickets amount to $8.1 million in fees and penalties, of which the agency has collected $5.5 million. Only about a quarter of all PPA revenue goes back to the city and school district.

Thousands more tickets were issued in Center City to drivers who didn’t move their cars on neighborhood cleanup days. Even more sweeping tickets were issued on streets that were not on the city’s cleaning schedule. A PPA spokesman declined to explain why agents were ticketing these areas.

Philadelphia is the only big city in the U.S. without a comprehensive street cleaning program. But these driver penalties trace back to an eight-route weekday morning sweep that has survived decades of municipal budget cuts without much notice. On these eight routes, which include Brown’s section of Rising Sun, as well as commercial stretches of Chester Avenue, and South Broad Street, signs enforce alternate-side-of-the-street parking restrictions.

According to officials interviewed for this story, each thoroughfare gets a weekly sweeping with the occasional missed day of service due to crew shortages or maintenance. That’s why PPA must be out there — to make sure streets are clear for the sweepers.

“These blocks were part of a larger posted daytime [street sweeping] system that mostly went away when we lost funding. But they continue to be swept because they’re commercial corridors with high traffic volume,” said Keith Warren, deputy streets commissioner for sanitation. “I don’t have a statistic, but they’re scheduled to be swept once a week and we try to shoot for that.”

Warren implied neighbors like Brown may just have not noticed the early-morning sweeping.

“I don’t know why they would say they never see them, but I do know that we send the trucks out,” said Warren.

But WHYY and PlanPhilly sent reporters to observe the sweepers for a second week of cleaning in January and found that the inconsistency continued.

Over the two weeks, the Streets Department failed to show up for the scheduled cleaning assignment 75 percent of the time, hitting only one-quarter of the assigned routes. Meanwhile, PPA agents ticketed cars parked in the street sweeping zones on most of the scheduled cleaning days.

Some streets — like Olney Avenue and Allegheny Avenue in North Philadelphia — were not swept either of the two weeks that reporters monitored the city’s daytime cleaning routes.

Chevonne Tingle, who has lived on Elmwood Avenue for 12 years, was at a loss to explain the erratic sweeping schedule.

“It’s sporadic. I don’t know. Maybe somebody called out from work?” she said. “But you see the PPA every week and people still get ticketed whether they come or not.”