Are You Philly’s Best Parallel Parker? Now’s Your Chance to Prove It

An advertisement for Philadelphia’s first-ever Parallel Parking Championship (photo courtesy the Philadelphia Parallel Parking Association)

     Listen to the interview edition here:

Are you a fantastic parallel parker? Can you squeeze your car into a tiny spot while stoop-sitters stare and the guy in the truck behind you screams a string of profanities? Oh! And here comes a dude on an e-bike in the middle of it all. If you’ve answered yes to these questions, you might be the ideal candidate for the first-ever, just-announced Philadelphia Parallel Parking Championship, which, yes, is a real thing, happening in South Philly this fall. Here, the South Philadelphia resident behind the Philadelphia Parallel Parking Association (PPPA — cute) tells us what to expect.

Please introduce yourself and tell us just what the hell is going on here.
My name is Adam Wodka. I live in South Philly. I work in events and experiences, so I have a global role working in ticketed events and immersive experiences. And the Philadelphia Parallel Parking Association — the PPPA — is something I’ve been talking about for years. A friend and I were talking like 10 years ago and decided there should be a parallel parking competition in Philly. And nothing ever comes of it. We all go on with our lives. And then, about five months ago, I was just sitting down and said this really should be here in Philly.

And, thus, the PPPA was born.
The competition is part of it. But the PPPA is about more than just the competition. The PPPA in general is about celebrating and promoting excellence in parallel parking.

You say this with a straight face.
Well, it’s very real. It’s very real to me. Living in South Philly, it’s something that is a very real part of our lives every day. The way that the PPPA views this is that all Philadelphians benefit by people in the city parking more efficiently so that we have more spots available on the streets for everybody, and being good at parallel parking so that they do it quickly and the cars can move through on one-way streets, and everybody’s happier. So the PPPA in general is, Hey, let’s provide resources and celebrate good parking and then the PPPA Championship is about, Hey, who’s the best out there? I want to know.

And how do you celebrate good parallel parking in Philadelphia other than the championship? Do you put stickers on cars that have parked well saying great job?
We haven’t done this yet, but the idea is that it’s something that looks like a parking ticket but is actually a celebration of a good parallel parking job. It might also be a little demerit for a bad parking job. We’re using our Instagram account to request feedback or input from people across the city to call out good parking jobs, to call out bad parking jobs, to solicit feedback on different things like savesies. We’re trying to be a place to discuss all the things parallel parking.

Philadelphia Parallel Parking Association executive director and Philadelphia Parallel Parking Championship founder Adam Wodka trying his best to parallel park his Prius in South Philadelphia (photo provided)

Are you a championship-level parallel parker?
I’m quite good. As the commissioner of the PPPA, the way I think about it is: Is Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, the best basketball player in the world? Probably not. But he’s there to make sure that the rules are enforced and that everything is done for the sport. I may not be number one. But I’m up there.

I’m a mighty fine parallel parker. How do I get to participate?
We just released the application. People can go to philaparallelparking.org/championship to fill it out and apply to be considered for the competition. We’re looking to have between 10 and 20 competitors. The application is asking about people’s experience with parallel parking, what parallel parking means to them, and then we are asking people to submit either a short video or audio file just telling us why they’re the best parallel parker in Philadelphia and why they should have the opportunity to prove that to the city. We have almost 40 applications so far and just opened them up two days ago. We will be announcing a date in September or October.

And how will the competition itself play out?
Competitors will be judged in three categories. You have: one shot, tight squeeze, and under duress.

So, for one shot, you just pull back, pull into the spot, and move forward. That’s it. We measure how close to the curb you are.

For the tight squeeze, the cars on either side of your spot are going to be set to a predetermined distance, I think 12 inches bigger than your car. Participants will use their own car, and we’ll just adjust the spot to their car size. And they’ll be ranked on the fewest number of moves it takes to get their car within six inches of the curb in that tight spot.

And then, finally, under duress is going to be recreating real-world conditions. So maybe there’s a chair in the spot, maybe there’s somebody yelling at you that they’re saving a spot for their husband who’s out, maybe there’s a car behind you honking at you. How do you perform under the real stress that we’re all under parallel parking each day?

And then the top three scorers will compete in one final round. They’ll be judged on form, flair, and style. And the best one is the 2026 PPPA champion.

Is smack talking allowed?
Encouraged.

What do I win?
A trophy. And bragging rights.

Is this happening on the street or in a parking lot? There’s that huge Acme lot on Passyunk.
We’re considering a few different options right now, going back and forth about it. We have a few off-street options. It’s easier to control circumstances that way. But at the same time, there’s an authenticity of having it on the street that I am craving. It will most surely be in South Philly.

During the under-duress portion of the parallel parking competition, can I be the guy yelling, “Yo, get the fuck out of the street”?
You’re welcome to submit an audio file file of you doing that. But yeah, I might be able to help you out there.