Space Odyssey

[December 12th, 2007]

A new state law set to take effect Jan. 1 has advocates for Portland’s disabled drivers in an uproar.

Currently, all disabled drivers get the same parking placard and the same rights. That means wheelchair users and disabled drivers who don’t need wheelchairs both enjoy unlimited free parking in on-street spaces reserved for the disabled.

But in June, the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 716, which creates a new parking placard for people who are disabled but don’t use wheelchairs.

After Jan. 1, disabled people not in wheelchairs could be subject for the first time in Oregon to locally enforced on-street time limits when they park, and fines for parking too long in a space. And they will also no longer get to park in metered spaces for free.

Michael Levine, vice chairman of the Portland Disabled Citizens’ Advisory Committee, says that all adds up to stripping non-wheelchair users of crucial rights.

“As far as we’re concerned, this law was kind of a stealth measure,” says Levine, a 58-year-old advocate who is blind and doesn’t use a wheelchair.

“We have found very few people with disabilities, or representatives of the disability community that had any participation or prior knowledge in any manner of the drafting of this bill,” Levine says.

The bill passed the Oregon House 44-8 and the Oregon Senate unanimously.

A spokesman for the group behind the new law—Oregon Paralyzed Veterans of America—says his group had a simple goal: to ensure that its members who use wheelchairs could get access to disabled parking spots, particularly in off-street parking lots.

“Our members simply can’t find parking spots,” says Kevin O’Reilly, government affairs director for the veterans group, which has about 400 members in Oregon.

He says SB 716 achieves that aim by giving unlimited disabled parking benefits only to people in wheelchairs.

“The problem has just gotten worse over the years,” O’Reilly says.

(David House, spokesman for the state Driver and Motor Vehicles Division, says there are more than 80,000 disabled placards in Oregon. DMV issues the placards based on doctors’ determinations and does not try to police fraud. An investigation by The Oregonian in 1999 found there were then 13,000 placards issued to dead people.)

The new legislation explicitly preserves wheelchair users’ free, unlimited parking in public spots but gives local governments the authority to subject non-wheelchair users to all parking laws that apply to able-bodied drivers.

The financial pressure on cities to apply the new law to disabled people who don’t use wheelchairs can be huge since parking spots are gold mines: The City of Portland’s 8,900 metered spots each generate about $1,500 a year, according to an October audit.

Ellis McCoy, the city’s parking-operations manager, says disabled parkers occupy 10 to 15 percent of metered spots, often tying up prime spaces all day.

“There’s increasing pressure on local governments from businesses,” Levine says. Levine and his committee have met with the Portland Office of Transportation and the city commissioner who oversees the department, Sam Adams, to lobby them against implementing the new law Jan 1.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on Dec. 19 whether to implement or delay enforcement of SB 716.

Levine acknowledges there is widespread misuse of disabled parking placards but says that does nothing to diminish the need of those who are truly disabled. He says the new law discriminates against people who legitimately need accommodation.

Here’s how: Many people who use walkers or crutches or suffer other ailments, such as heart disease or multiple sclerosis, that limit mobility have difficulty operating Portland’s parking meters, which are often located far from the spaces where they park.

Limited-mobility citizens may need more time to shop or receive medical or government services and cannot easily move their vehicles when their time expires.

“Whether or not we have to pay for parking is not the issue for us,” Levine says. “It’s having the time to do what we need to do.”