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Handicap placard abusers on notice
After a bad automobile accident and 8 days in the ICU, the placard helped make an incredibly difficult time a bit easier. I can't tell you how many times my very able bodied husband pulled our vehicle into a handicapped parking space, texted me to start the long, weak, painful, tottering crutch walk out from an appointment or lunch with a friend, didn't show up part way there to help me, and I struggled to the car only to find somebody giving him a hard time. Yes, they stopped when they saw me. Most of them didn't bother to apologize, however, and it didn't make the struggles any easier. Things are not always as they seem. The people who took it upon themselves to yell at my husband saw a young, abled bodied man park a car with a placard in a handicapped parking space, get out of the car, and start for the building. The reality was that the placard was being used properly and with incredible gratitude by both that able bodied man and severely disabled wife to whom the placard had been legally and appropriately issued.— October 18, 2015 6:45 a.m.
Handicap placard abusers on notice
If your elderly dad has a real problem, please get him a placard. Age brings about mobility disabilities (simple muscle weakness being one of them), and, from your comment, it sounds like your father has developed problems that may have risen to the level of a disability. Check out the DMV website and talk to his doctors. If your father's range of choices of where he can go is limited by a mobility disability, it will impact his (and your) emotional health.— October 18, 2015 6:26 a.m.
Handicap placard abusers on notice
Perhaps, as you believe, your friend was abusing the placard. However, it could be possible that he needed to park by the door and was joking about it so that you didn't realize his disability was an issue.— October 18, 2015 6:17 a.m.
Handicap placard abusers on notice
How easy is it for somebody with a disability (with or without a wheel chair) to get out of the garage and across the city blocks to your office building? Would you suggest the city set up some sort of valet service for handicapped spaces? Perhaps a shuttle from parking garages to the office buildings? I am not being harsh. I am asking the questions seriously. You raise a serious issue. What is the solution? But, maybe I also am kind of sort of being harsh. I had what I view as the good fortune of needing the placard for 13 long months after a bad automobile accident. Getting from the curb to the building took planning and the same amount energy that my morning hour and a half run used to take me (and takes me now). Now with every step I take, on my run or in my day, I can't help but remember how extremely lucky I am to be able to park blocks away from where I need to go and only suffer the inconvenience of the time it takes to walk the remaining distance. Remember, it can all change in an instant. You might need those spots one day. Would you trade 150 bucks a month to be that person now?— October 18, 2015 5:59 a.m.
Handicap placard abusers on notice
I respectfully disagree that there should be an app for people to report "placard abusers." Just because you cannot see the disability does not mean the healthy looking person getting out of the car is able to walk a long distance. A person struggling with cystic fibrosis, an auto-immune disease, a prosthetic device, balance issues, sight issues, even the difficult stages of treating cancer, are all just as disabled as a person whose disability is evident. While a different colored placard for those with a non-visual disability would help keep others from judging, it really is nobody's business but the state (through proper issuance of placards and traffic enforcement) and the disabled person as to why he or she needs that placard. The state should pay attention to the placards issued and ticket people parking in spaces without a placard. But, keep the regular person who does not have any idea what the situation the person with the placard is dealing with out of it. They don't have the background to accurately assess the situation, and really, it is none of their business.— October 18, 2015 5:31 a.m.
Hillcrest loves them some cars
It wasn't that a small minority scuttled it. It is that a small minority brought serious issues to the attention of the Peter Pan's running the cycling portion of SANDAG. I am a cyclist and not an advocate, but I spoke up and opposed the closure of University for four reasons: 1. The transportation folks at SANDAG, you know the ones who know all about ingress and egress and emergency planning, claimed to know nothing about the closure of University. In fact, in answer to my email, they claimed that any changes like that would have to go through emergency planning review. There are only two ways out of the Midtown area of Mission Hills. This plan would have blocked one of them. Also, there are two major hospital complexes along the route. If I could reach out to the SANDAG transportation division, why weren't the bike folks doing so? 2. As far as I can tell, nobody reached out to the legal folks who defend the numerous county lawsuits either. Bike that route. See all those little driveways to houses and condominiums? Hmm, don't you think maybe those property owners might have some kind of right of access to those driveways? I'm sure some lawyer knows. Too bad the bike folks at SANDAG don't. 3. The claimed disclosure to the community about closing University never happened. Look at the SANDAG bike route on their web site. See any mention of closing University? How can you claim you made significant community outreach, when you never mailed the people in the neighborhood something along the lines of, "Just so you know, we're thinking about closing your only way out of your neighborhood. You may want to attend the next meeting." Instead, my neighbors and I read in the Reader about how the signs put up, not by SANDAG, but by an advocate, were taken down. Where were SANDAG's signs? 4. Parking does matter, and technology is making cars not the enemy they were. We have an aging population, particularly in Mission Hills, where a bunch of middle income workers were lucky enough to buy cheap condos in the 1980's and can't afford to move. In New York and Chicago, parking cannot be destroyed unless it is replaced elsewhere. If you want to take the parking out, buy some vacant lots and build some garages for the (electric) (and I hope self-driving) cars When I wrote Councilman Gloria's office, they "backpedaled" claiming closing University was a single idea from a community member and that it was not in the final phases of being voted on. Really? Glad a "small minority" noticed.— June 3, 2015 7:24 a.m.