The City of Pittsburgh has expanded a pilot program that monitors business loading zones and charges for their use. It’s called the “Smart Loading Zones” program. And, ostensibly, it’s designed to prevent parking abuses in loading zones.
But it might as well be called the “Stupid Government Tricks” program.
As the Post-Gazette reports it:
“Each smart loading zone requires those that park there to scan a sign or text the number to pay for parking in that location. A $100,000 grant by Automotus, a company that specializes in managing traffic in cities, including commercial traffic, has allowed Pittsburgh to become a pilot city for the program.
“Drivers in the zone pay an escalating price depending on how long they’re there: 7 cents a minute for the first five minutes, 14 cents a minute from five to 15 minutes, 20 cents a minute from 15 to 30 minutes and 27 cents a minute from 30 to 60 minutes. They’ll receive a bill, and potentially a ticket in the mail, if they don’t register to pay. Cameras are installed at each space to monitor who uses them.”
Never mind that loading and unloading times can, legitimately, be quite long for some businesses.
The loading zones feature purple-painted curbs. And business owners, who were not consulted before the pilot began, are turning purple with anger.
How in the world could any government entity think that charging businesses’ suppliers to deliver product – or charging customers to pick up product – is in any way a good business practice, let alone a good government practice?
Hold on, here’s a special announcement coming over the public address speaker:
“Would the government official(s) who thought this was a good idea please report to the concrete plant? The loading engineer is ready to fill that hole in your head(s) with aggregate – to make your rocks for brains status official.”
Speaking of stupid government tricks and rocks for brains, the P-G also reports that Pittsburgh City Council has pushed through legislation to “kick-start” its long moribund land bank to battle blight.
But, “Just hours after passing the legislation to empower the land bank, council members voted to slash half of its federal stimulus funding –a move made by Mayor Ed Gainey last month as officials became concerned that the land bank could not spend its $7 million allotment by the end of next year. The funds must be obligated by then or they will expire.”
And as Allegheny Institute Research Director Eric Montarti reminds, the original Land Bank federal stimulus allocation was $10 million. “It dropped to $7 million and now there is this subsequent reduction,” he notes.
What, too few houses and other buildings to tear down or, if salvageable, be sold for rehab?
Sorry, but if the city – which is the largest property owner in Pittsburgh (with one-in-five of those 5,000 parcels having code or health violations) – truly was serious about tackling this problem, it would have supercharged its effort and dedicated itself to using the entire $10 million taxpayer gift to at least start getting the job done.
Now, some might take issue with a certain scrivener calling out certain government actions as “stupid” and saying these fine purveyors of such stupidity have “rocks for brains.”
But as the legendary late literary curmudgeon H.L. Mencken pointedly reminded, “The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.”
And that should not change until government learns that it serves the people and it’s not the people that serve the government.
Capisce?
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
