I was impressed that the towtruck drivers on 15th got on their bullhorns and gave everyone a good half hour of warnings before starting to tow cars.

Because, of course, this being Philly, everyone had completely ignored the No Parking signs. Seriously, anywhere else I've lived, if there are temporary No Parking signs posted that street would be deserted. Here, it's like they're not even there.

I think that's because the city uses them too liberally. For instance, on 25th, the first sign was no parking for 3 nights, but the actual work was done in about 3 hours on the first night, so for the rest of the weekend, the signs were up with no work being done.

Then the signs went up again for more work... that window came and went with no work done, so they scratched out the dates on the signs and put on new dates. And still no work is being done yet.

It's hard to obey the signs when they seem so arbitrary.

__Jason

__________________

The 3 weeks it took them to pave 76 I had to spend $300 to fix my windshield that was broken from a rock hitting it.
I was so happy about!
Now b/c of the windshield I just try to avoid SG totally.

Then there's the guy I've seen a couple times just plain ripping the sign off the tree and parking there - unless a cop sees him do it, he can honestly claim that there's no sign indicating restrictions!

I think they're doing more than just repaving around 15th and Spring Garden. I've been seeing a lot of Philadelphia Gas Works trucks in the area.

Yeah that work at 15th and Spring Garden started before the milling and
(we hope!) re-paving project.

Welcome to Philly... miles of the city are like this. Not just your little Center City bubble.


Here's the deal. It's two different crews. A crew to remove and a different crew repaving.


They also like to leave it "unsurfaced" for a while to see if anything's going to collapse (sinkholes) or come loose (manholes/etc)


So yeah...they kinda do it on purpose ...using your car to help prep the road for paving.


and was SG okay before? Maybe. They write up contracts years in advance to redo high traffic streets etc..


I wouldn't hold my breath for the paving crew.

__________________
"

SG isn't Center City. Why wait for sinkholes to form? If there arent cracks in the asphalt, they arent gonna appear. It is just a waste of time and a nuisance to drivers.

Where you been Zur?

I asked the guys once.


They said it's mostly due to the fact it's way easier to rip the road up than to pave.


So the rip rip rip... and then don't really worry when it gets paved.


Then the guy said "we also seem to catch some problems underground before they pave and have to rip it back up again.


(Like pipes bursting due to the vibrations of them removing the asphalt, unstable subsurfaces, etc._)


It's really old under the road..lotsa cast iron, brick, etc.... it shifts around and seems to be disturbed by the paving..


It's why you always see those little rectangle patches (or dirt bumps or iron plates) in/on newly paved roads in Philly...


the problem took a couple weeks to form and by then it was paved.


(I was on a nice long break from life... )

__________________
"

Makes sense. In college when I worked a summer for PennDOT as an inspector, what a waste of time that was, they proof rolled the subgrade by watching the dump trucks, graders etc go by to see if there were any sink holes. I just didnt think removing an inch of asphalt would make a big difference. Never thought of the ancient age of what is beneath the roads.......Musta been nice to take a break.