Disability Council meeting on parking



Howard Chabner sends this:

Mayor’s Disability Council

Friday, May 17, 2013
1:00 PM. - 4:00 PM.
San Francisco City Hall, Room 400

For anyone who wants to hear and possibly comment on Ed Reiskin’s views about parking policy, here is another chance.

MTA has an accessible parking policy advisory committee, which completed its work recently. (I had been invited on this committee, but declined.) Ed Reiskin, plus some members of the committee including Christina Rubke, a committee member and MTA Board of Directors member who uses a wheelchair and voted in favor of the Fell/Oak and Masonic projects, will be presenting the recommendations at this Friday's Disability Council meeting. The disability council meetings are televised, and there is public comment (usually 3 min.).

I just went on the SF Park website and the committee's recommendations have not yet been posted. Here is a link to the part of the website where they are likely to be posted.

The committee has been looking at disabled placard fraud (particularly medical professionals who falsely certify people as eligible for disabled parking placards), sloppy administration by the DMV (which is responsible for issuing placards), and also whether or not to continue the policy (per state law) of allowing people with disabled parking placards to park at metered spaces for free and without limits. I understand that the committee will recommend changing free, unlimited parking at meters (which would require SF getting an exemption from state law.), but only subject to certain conditions, such as the city first increasing the number of blue zones to the legally required number (SF still has fewer than legally required) and providing true physical access to the metered payment mechanisms for people with all types of disabilities.

Of course fraud should be punished and eliminated, and the DMV should only issue placards to those who are truly eligible. That should go without saying. With respect to some of the other issues, such as free unlimited parking at meters, I've been making the point that the issues can't be looked at in a vacuum---they must be seen in the context of San Francisco's campaign against cars, including adding meters in residential neighborhoods and the elimination of many spaces (unmetered and metered) that have been de facto accessible, even though not technically considered as such (for example, the elimination of three blocks of parking spaces on the south side of Oak Street, and the reduction of de facto accessible spaces on JFK Drive). I intend to come to the meeting and make a similar comment.