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Fighting accessible parking scofflaws must go beyond fines: Advocate

Lfpress.com
July 19, 2018
Jennifer Bieman

You can chase them down and clobber them with hefty fines, but at the end of the day curbing the perennial problem of accessible parking scofflaws boils down to drivers making the right call in the moment, one advocate says.

London’s $375 fine for parking in an accessible parking spot without a valid permit isn’t a magic bullet, says Sandra Carpenter, executive director of the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto, but it’s a good start.

London accessible parking tickets

“It is not ‘investigation’ we need to fix this problem. Periodic blitzes with stiffer penalties, including community service with disability organizations, might help,” she said in an email. “We don’t need investigation, just will.”

Parking officers patrolled more than 500 public and private parking lots in a week-long crackdown that ended Sunday. Officers handed out 236 tickets to motorists running afoul of the city’s accessible parking bylaws. To date in 2018, parking officials have issued more than 1,100 tickets for accessible parking infractions in the city.

Officers also seized more than 35 permits in the week-long blitz. Some were crude photocopies, others were well-executed forgeries. Some had obscured the expiration dates and some were being used by people other than the permit holder.

London parking enforcement officers are trained to spot fake and tampered-with permits, department manager Annette Drost said.

Officers hear all kinds of reasons and excuses, she said. Most offenders don’t expect they’ll be caught red-handed. Some downplay the seriousness of parking in an accessible space when they’re not supposed to, Drost said.

“They will often say, ‘If everybody did it, then it would be a problem. But if it’s just me, for five minutes, then it’s not an issue,’” she said. “Unfortunately they don’t understand that (permit holders) need those spots . . . or they can’t go shopping.”

In London, the number of tickets issued each year for accessible parking infractions has ranged from a low of 1,045 tickets in 2015 to a high of 1,911 tickets last year.

Carpenter said drivers need to do the right thing and realize accessible parking spots help reduce barriers for people with disabilities. She also said cities across Ontario need to work together to find a solution.

“Better education of both those who use and those who issue permits is required, as well as better coordination within and across Ontario jurisdictions,” Carpenter said. “For example the rules in Toronto, are the same as Ottawa or Thunder Bay, will also help minimize abuse.”

A private member’s bill tabled by Thornhill Progressive Conservative MPP Gila Martow in 2016 tried to tackle the municipal co-ordination of accessible parking. Her bill called for a provincially appointed commission to look into accessible parking practices across Ontario, develop a standard set of bylaws and recommend ways to encourage municipalities to adopt and enforce the slate of rules.

The bill made it through first and second reading and was sent to committee in May 2016. It never went far enough in the process to be passed.

Messages left for Martow Wednesday were unreturned.

Carpenter said ensuring accessible spots are not abused by non-permit holders has been an “ongoing saga” even though changes to the passes made in 2016 by the provincial government made them harder to forge.

Even though the blitz is over, Drost said parking officers are still on the lookout for accessible parking infractions.

“We are not going to be shy that we are going to do very heavy enforcement. So beware,” she said. “If we don’t do enforcement, the permits are absolutely worthless.”