Councillor Wants Disabled To Pay For Parking
Posted February 13, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It sounds about as politically incorrect a suggestion as they come – revamp Ontario’s disabled parking system to make those in wheelchairs pay the freight for leaving their cars at meters.
But Councillor Howard Moscoe points out it’s not about being correct – it’s about change and money.
The city’s Licensing Committee chair explains there are thousands of bogus disabled tags out there already and many people are simply ripping off the city as well as leaving those in legitimate need at a disadvantage.
He claims the old system was only put in place to keep the disabled from having to get back to a meter within an hour’s time. But there are now fully accessible pay and display machines that obviate the need for the quick return, and disabled drivers shouldn’t be penalized if they aren’t there when the tag expires.
“There are a couple of thousand dead people running around with disabled parking permits,” he argues. “It’s just gotten out of full control. The whole system is completely dysfunctional, and I just want to treat the disabled the same way as everybody else.”
His feeling? They should pay an initial fee to leave their cars, something they already have to do at city-run Green P lots.
He estimates taxpayers lose $3 million to the current system and it needs to change.
Not surprisingly, advocates disagree.
“People driving Maseratis and, you know, with a disabled parking permitted in their windows. That’s the problem,” counters Sandra Carpenter of the Centre for Independent Living. “Not the problem of somebody with a beat-up ten-year-old van like mine.”
Carpenter complains her disability leaves her with so little cash, she already can’t afford to park downtown. “It just seems to be sort of rubbing salt in the wound,” she maintains.
And she’s not alone. Since Moscoe floated the proposal on Tuesday, his office has been bombarded with angry emails from those opposed to the idea.
They complain public transit is not an option for many who have mobility issues and less than 30 percent of TTC vehicles are accessible.
But while these two are on opposite sides of the issue, Carpenter and Moscoe are in agreement on at least one thing – something needs to be done to stop the cheaters. The question remains what’s the proper response.
“I thought the whole original debate was around the fact that there was so many bogus permits out there and this doesn’t seem to resolve or address that issue at all,” she concludes.
In the end, Carpenter accuses Moscoe of looking for money in all the wrong places.
“I feel like it’s another quote-unquote ‘tax on the disabled people.’ If, in fact, it is a money-grab for the city, and I don’t want to sound so cynical about it, but maybe there’s a lot of other things they can be doing and not on our backs.”
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