Carpenter's reluctance about Connie Mack Stadium soon proved justified. He found it impossible to find a way to make the park profitable. His first thought was to extend the length of his income season by adding a football team. In 1959, he sought to buy an American Football League franchise, but the negotiations failed. Additionally, the neighborhood rapidly went to seed; the phrase "Watch your car, mister?" became a catch phrase to game attendees. Indeed, the parking problem became the very crux of the issue in the 1950s and 1960s: whereas most people had formerly come to the park on public transportation, after the war, the automobile became the standard mode of transport. There was a 500-car lot, later expanded to 850 cars, across 21st Street, but it was not nearly enough. Carpenter tried to buy the whole block in 1959 for a multi-level garage, but the deal fell through. The team maintained special "Phillies Express" buses to shuttle fans from transportation hubs in Camden and the 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby, but the service never really caught on. Carpenter also investigated land tracts first in West Philadelphia, then in the Torresdale section of the city, as well as nearby suburban Cheltenham and farther-flung Camden, across the river in New Jersey. But there were prohibitive problems with every one of those proposed sites.