I never wanted to own a car. A car to me is an annoyance at best and a costly hassle at worst: bumper-to-bumper traffic, “check tire” lights and, of course, parking. One thing I didn’t foresee was that through disputes over parking enforcement in Mt. Lebanon, car ownership would lead me to greater questions about police transparency, the point of local government and the nature of shared community. Yet, that is exactly what happened after I brought a car to a place its website describes as “a premier example of that phenomenon of modern American life, the ‘automobile suburb.’”
I was born in Moon and moved to Mt. Lebanon in 2024 with my wife to be closer to her work and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, which I attend. We share a car, and she relies on public transit to get to work. I’ve dedicated my time in law school to helping people facing structural inequities that overlap with the law; she works with adult, mentally handicapped individuals.
As a graduate student and public school aide, we are lower-income, and have used social programs like SNAP and LIHEAP. I understand the difficulties that can come from interacting with often labyrinthine government bureaucracies, and I have worked with clients who have had to overcome transportation hurdles because they don’t have a car. Unfortunately, when public transportation funding is at risk, a car has been both a luxury and a near necessity in a county that has seen a 36% public transit service reduction in the past 25 years.
When we first moved to Mt. Lebanon, we, like many other residents in the municipality, parked on the street. The township prohibits overnight street parking so that “it is easier for patrol officers to determine if a parked vehicle might pose a threat to residents,” according to its website…