Gps

THE PHILADELPHIA Parking Authority won the first round in its boxing match with the city's taxi drivers, when a Common Pleas judge ruled this week that the authority can have global positioning systems (GPS) installed in cabs. Round Two is about to begin, but since it involves a sit-down discussion between the two parties, to be held next Wednesday, we have hopes that this fight will be over soon. The authority wants the GPS so it can track cab locations, allow passengers to pay with credit or PPA Smart cards and let passengers see the most direct route to their destination.

ALLENTOWN - Muhlenberg College has so many trees, the cicadas sound like a symphony. At this moment, however, Patrick Molloy hears only static. "Those trees are blocking my GPS," he frets. "I can't get a signal. " The signal matters, since Molloy, 18, has just a few weeks left to map and memorize the 82-acre campus before settling in as Muhlenberg's first blind student in decades. "It's not so much about counting steps as it is estimating distance," he explains as we hoof it to Walz Hall.

Philadelphia cabbies should be applauding, not demonstrating in the streets this week against, two initiatives designed to enhance the city's much-improved taxi service. New regulations requiring that taxis be pulled off the road after 250,000 miles will ensure a smoother ride for cab customers, as well as drivers who spend long days behind the wheel. Another mandate, to take effect this year, calls for installing global positioning systems (GPS) in taxis. That's designed to speed dispatching, reduce turf battles, and guard against hacks who bump up fares by taking customers the long way 'round to their destination.

  THE IDEA of a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax is being discussed - and tested in states like Oregon and Iowa. It would be an alternative to the federal gas tax, which is under review by Congress and could lead to a new system for funding highway construction and repairs when the measure comes up for reauthorization in 2014. One feature of the VMT tax is that it would require some way to measure travel, creating the possibility that the government will use advanced technology to track movements of every car and truck.

A recent string of car break-ins along Kelly Drive has prompted police to remind the public that leaving GPS systems or other valuables in clear sight is an invitation to burglars. A 19-year-old man was arrested last weekend and charged with theft after plainclothes officers caught him breaking a car window near Lemon Hill Drive, where runners and rowers park their cars in the morning. Police believe the man, Malik Coyett, had been regularly driving from his home in West Philadelphia to the area, parking, and then going from car to car. Coyett searched for GPS systems and laptops, and even checked the wheel wells for car keys hidden inside, police said.

Cherry Hill is about eight miles from Center City as the crow flies, nine miles according to most computer mapping software, and 269 miles if you're a Philadelphia cabbie. At least that's what the global positioning system, or GPS, used by the city's 1,600 medallion cab drivers, read. As for the route suggested by the GPS during a cab ride Thursday, well, 269 miles may not have been far off. As it continuously recalibrated the route, the GPS's serene, modulated female voice directed the driver near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, under the bridge, around the bridge, but never over the bridge.

IF YOU DON'T have E-ZPass, be careful following your GPS or online map when it comes to two interchanges onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The exits are E-ZPass only, and a Turnpike Authority spokesman says motorists who do not have E-ZPass tags could pay a lot more if they accidentally use them. They are Exit 352, the eastbound-only Street Road interchange in Bensalem, and Exit 340, the westbound-only Virginia Drive Interchange near the Fort Washington Office Center in Upper Dublin Township.

Freeze appears to ease in West FRESNO, Calif. - The freeze gripping the West appeared on the verge of easing Tuesday, but farmers who spent millions to protect crops were still assessing damage, some produce prices climbed, and businesses and residents dealt with burst pipes. The National Weather Service predicted another frosty night but said temperatures would begin to warm as high pressure moved east. For a fifth night, temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley, California's agricultural heart, dipped below freezing, though they were a few degrees warmer than previous nights.

We thought we were savvy travelers when we moved up our road trip to Koziar's Christmas Village to get ahead of an approaching snowstorm (remember the two feet we got last month?). Instead, our 90-mile drive from Camden County to Bernville, Pa. (near Reading), turned into a Friday night odyssey. It started with the rush-hour traffic. As we inched along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, we realized that this drive was going to take much longer than two hours. So, we scrapped our plans to eat at a nice restaurant and pulled into a turnpike rest stop for Roy Rogers (gone are the days when you could "dine" on the turnpike)

MAYOR NUTTER needs a GPS if he believes the city is going in the right direction. The mayor and City Council raised property taxes 10 percent for residents (even though the economy is in the worst recession since World War II), they approved hiking Philadelphia's sales tax to 8 percent (to help with the city's large deficit), the mayor along with the police initiated a program in which the police can "stop and frisk" any Philadelphian "who looks suspicious" (a practice encouraged in mostly minority and poor neighborhoods of Philadelphia)