PARKING FRUSTRATIONS INTENSIFY FOR DISABLED

From : Vaughan Perspectives, July 31-August 6, 2008 edition

By Paul Leavoy

It can be frustrating to see the average driver get away with parking in a handicap spot.

But imagine legitimately parking in a disabled parking spot as a disabled driver, only to find a $300 ticket on your windshield.

This is a frustration Meenu Sikand faces regularly.

The Woodbridge resident suffered a spinal cord injury at the age of 22 and has used a wheelchair since.  As an accessibility advocate and coordinator with the Region of Peel, she’s tried to bring greater awareness to the weaknesses in the City of Vaughan’s accessibility standards.

However, when it comes to the basic task of avoiding parking tickets, Sikand has had no luck.

In spite of the fact Sikand’s minivan features a well-displayed permit in the front windshield and official stickers on both licence plates, she continues to get parking tickets at retail and public parking lots across the city.

“It’s such a nuisance and source of frustration,” says Sikand.

Though her tickets are always cleared when she brings them to the city’s bylaw department to explain, she notes that she still has to take half a day off work and drive around the city; simply to correct something that shouldn’t be a problem in the first place.

“We have permits for a reason,” says Sikand, who has landed as many as three parking tickets in one month alone.

She’s at a loss to explain why she continues to receive tickets and can only conclude that bylaw officers tending to her vehicle are not devoting enough attention to determine whether her vehicle is legitimately parked.

But, as Sikand insists, it’s hard not to notice.

In addition to her permit and stickers, only look inside Sikand’s vehicle shows it is no ordinary vehicle.  Seats have been removed and spaces cleared to provide easy exits and entrances from the vehicle.

And thanks to another hole in the City’s enforcement of accessibility policies, sometimes exiting and entering her vehicle is not an easy task. 

At a number of parking lots around the city – namely at the No Frills grocery store near Weston Road and Rutherford Road – the painted lines around disabled parking spaces often do not provide the user with enough space on either side of the vehicle.

As a result, other cars tend to sneak in and crowd the spots where painted diagonal lines would normally denote that vehicles in disabled parking spaces need extra room on the left and right.

This has been going on for three or four years,” says Sikand.  “It can be very frustrating in the winter because sometimes when you return to your vehicle, there is not enough space to enter and you simply have to wait until the other driver returns to their car.”

She has asked the accessibility coordinator at the City of Vaughan to look into both of these issues and has also spoken to members of council, to no avail.

Neither Regional Councillor Gino Rosati nor Mayor Linda Jackson, the two council members on the city’s accessibility advisory committee, could be reached for comment by press time.

The City’s accessibility guidelines specify that it is enough to display a disabled persons parking permit in unobstructed, plain view on the dashboard.