Starting in September, drivers who use disability placards will be required to pay for parking in more Baltimore neighborhoods — but there should be more spaces available for them, reports the Baltimore Sun. The city is expanding its ProjectSPACE initiative, under which 165 on-street parking spaces in Harbor East and Fells Point will be reserved for cars with the placards.
Before the program was instituted downtown in 2014, cars with placards could park for free — the city’s former crank-turn parking meters were deemed non-ADA compliant. Under ProjectSPACE Phase 1, accessible meters were installed downtown. Now everyone pays.
Enforcing parking rates may seem like a backward way to increase access for people with disabilities, but prior to the initiative, the promise of free parking led to a high level of placard theft and abuse. According to the city, 10 percent of Baltimore adults were eligible to apply for a disability placard in 2010, but it was not uncommon for 100 percent of downtown parking spaces to be occupied by placarded cars. Before 200 spaces were reserved for drivers with disabilities in Phase 1, the average number of placards reported stolen every month was 23. Since, only three are reported stolen monthly.
After Phase 2 goes into effect, the city expects to continue to expand the program.
Jen Kinney is a freelance writer and documentary photographer. Her work has also appeared in Philadelphia Magazine, High Country News online, and the Anchorage Press. She is currently a student of radio production at the Salt Institute of Documentary Studies. See her work at jakinney.com.
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