As you navigate the streets of downtown
Portland, do you ever take a peek inside the windshields of the cars
that fill our city's scant parking spaces? I don't make a habit of
it, but Joseph Rose, writer for the Oregonian, decided to look into
some suspicions he had about the striking abundance of blue handicap
cards hanging from the rearview mirrors of parked cars.
Here's the deal: In Portland, people
with disabilities get free, full-day parking as long as they have
that blue card in their window. This reflects Portland's friendly,
welcoming vibe and seems like a pretty reasonable gesture at first
glance. However, when one takes into consideration the apparent ease
with which these cards are obtained (Rose suspects doctors want to
keep their clients, and so give them what they want), problems
emerge. As Rose and parking enforcer, Mary Kisel, traversed downtown
Portland, Rose noticed that there were entire blocks of cars parked
and displaying hanging blue cards. It's a sensitive topic to discuss,
but Rose certainly isn't the only one who has some doubts about the
high volume of Portlanders with disabilities. City Commissioner,
Steve Novick, agrees that evidence points to people playing the
system to get out of paying for parking and moving their cars every
two hours:
“The idea that more than half of the
people with business in the core area of downtown Portland have
disabilities that preclude them from using parking meters or other
forms of transportation frankly strains credulity.”
This is coming from a man who not only
has an interest in the well being of his city, but is also a member
of the disabled community. Novack, who was born without a left hand
or fibula bones in his legs, sent a letter last week to Portland's
Disabled Parking Task Force in the hopes of fixing the issue of
people essentially getting doctors' notes to get out of paying for
parking.
Of course, I don't mean to suggest that
all people who have blue cards in their windshields are faking
disability. It's a similar situation to the increasing talk about
people unnecessarily filing disability claims: some people take
advantage of a loosely defined system and end up hurting those who
actually need the assistance. Now these acts of personal gain are
hurting the city as well as its disabled community. Portland loses an
estimated $2.4 million to disability parking abuse. People aren't
paying the meters, and because of full-day parking privileges, car
turnover decreases, and Portland loses money.
So what do we do? Do we set a single
parking standard for all people? Make a specific set of guidelines
for doctors to follow when determining who gets a blue parking card?
Maybe put a completely different body (like the Disabled Parking Task
Force) in charge of making those determinations? Or should we just
leave things as they are? What is more fair for the disabled
community? For the city?
I know that's a lot of questions, but I
think it's a subject worth thinking about. Give me your pros and
cons, and tell me where you stand on this issue.
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