Phila to drive.out abandoned cars with zero tolerance

br_Joe Holden news editor

Philadelphia has embarked on a program that gears to rid the nation's fifth-largest city of nearly 40,000 abandoned cars that line many city streets.

Mayor John Street is in the driver's seat of the program that plans to clear 1,000 cars off of city streets a day, amounting to the massive goal.

Elected in a close mayoral race, Street has begun a cleanup policy that makes abandoned-car cleanup a priority.

The city bas adopted a zerotolerance policy to deal with the huge amount of automobiles that litter the city's many tight streets.

The war waged on automobile abandonment by the Street administration comes only three months before Philadelphia will be in the national spotlight for the Republican Convention. Ernie Iovanonne, executive assistant to Phila. District Attorney Lynn Abraham, thinks Street's car abandonment program is a good start for the city's many neighborhoods. "It is a definite step forward," Iovanonne said. "Mayor Street is concerned with the neighborhood, not just the fact that the convention will be in town. "The convention isn't being held in the city neighborhoods."