Anatomy of an OUTRAGE

Today's urban horror story begins with an anonymous letter to the editor.

We know little about the writer, except that he is an admitted suburbanite who is capital-letter OUTRAGED at the injustice and illegality he sees every day in Pittsburgh.

Simply put, the writer wanted someone in journalism to find out why thousands of tax-abused commuters like him have to pay $195 a month to park at the First Avenue Garage while hundreds of well-paid city and county workers get to park for free.

Early Tuesday, I checked out his claim that there are 105 parking spaces on the streets around City Hall where everyone from city department directors to firefighters store their personal cars all day.

As touted

On Try Street, where he said 20 cars would be, I found 13 at 7:30 a.m. On the dead-end of Third Avenue, where I counted 12 vehicles, a wise local observer said the same 20 cars park free and unbothered by the law there every day.

A white sports car -- one of six parked on the sidewalk on Third at 10 a.m. -- would still be there at 3 p.m. So would the white Chevy Lumina parked in front of a sign that read "Reserved for City of Pittsburgh Permit Parking Only."

The Lumina -- like 14 cars I counted at meters on Fourth Avenue and Court Place and the 13 on Try Street -- had a parking permit card prominently displayed on its dash board.

These magical permits -- about 200 issued by the Pittsburgh Parking Authority and about 50 issued by the city's General Services department for city employees -- account for most of the "free-parking" by government workers around City Hall.

The permits can be abused. For instance, a housing inspector's silver Ford Taurus (permit No. 075) hogged a meter on Court Place all day Tuesday.

Horgan explains

But Pittsburgh Parking Authority boss Ralph Horgan said parking permits are designed to allow employees to park (in legal spaces between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.) while clocking in at City Hall before heading out to the neighborhoods they work in.

Our angry writer never asked why city workers -- or commuters -- can't use the 50 spaces at the vacant and chained off City Motor Pool parking lot at Second Street. Or why the county's roomy surface lot at Fourth and Ross is off limits.

But he did point out the obvious: this parking welfare for government workers, which includes 300 Allegheny County employees who park for free at the county lot on Third Avenue, is not fiscally prudent for a bankrupt city.

I'm no Act 47 accountant. But that made sense to me, so I did the math.

Adding it up

Fewer than 25 of Downtown's 520 parking meters are planted on the streets I checked out. But a constantly occupied meter like one on Court Place that charges 25 cents for 71/2 minutes should earn the city $2 an hour, $20 a day, $100 a week, $5,200 a year.

If those 25 meters are monopolized every day by city employees who pay nothing, the city loses $130,000 a year in lost revenue. Plus, if 25 workers had to pay $10 a day at a city garage, the city would collect another $65,000.

That's real money -- and faulty reasoning. According to parking czar Horgan, the average meter takes in just $4.75 a day, not $20. Which is why he says his 40 enforcement officers write so many tickets and 250 parking permits don't hurt the city much.

Unless you subtract lost goodwill.