Disability placard does not guarantee free city parking

Question: Since when must drivers with a handicapped placard pay for parking in a municipal lot if an attendant is working? When did this change take effect? Who made this change?

Answer: Since Jan. 1, when a law approved by Honolulu’s City Council and mayor in July 2014 took effect. Ordinance 14-25 repealed “the free parking provision for city parking lots with an attendant because the attendant can assist disabled persons making payments and there are no accessibility issues with meters,” according to an announcement in November 2014 from the city’s Department of Transportation Services.

Charging motorists who have disability placards the standard rate at city parking lots that are staffed by an attendant is consistent with state policy at state-owned lots with parking attendants, according to the announcement.

A public hearing about the change was held on Oct. 29, 2014, according to the city.

Metered parking remains free (within limits) for motorists with valid disability placards because there is no attendant to assist. Parking is free for 2.5 hours or the maximum amount of time on the meter, whichever is longer.

You are not the only Kokua Line reader to recently notice this change and write or call in.

Some confusion may stem from the mistaken belief that free parking is an entitlement for motorists with disability placards, when actually it is intended to address a civil rights issue, namely the risk of being deprived a parking space or being ticketed for failure to pay because the disabled motorist is unable to feed the meter. That inaccessibility issue disappears when an attendant is waiting to receive the payment, said Francine Wai, executive director of the state’s Disability and Communication Access Board.

“You do have to pay if there’s an attendant. The free parking is due to an inaccessibility issue, the physical barrier of not being able to climb up on the curb or feed the meter,” said Wai. “It was never meant as a discount for disabled people.”

Policies may vary when a parking lot is governed by an attendant or drop box, which leads us to the next question.

Q: Is it a law that you have to pay a normal rate for drop-box and ticket parking even though you have a handicap pass?

A: Regarding parking privileges for those with a disabled-person parking permit, Hawaii Revised Statutes 291-55 states that:

“Any vehicle displaying special license plates, a removable windshield placard, or a temporary removable windshield placard issued under this part shall be permitted to park, without payment of metered parking fees, in any metered parking space for a maximum of two-and-a-half hours or the maximum amount of time the meter allows, whichever is longer. All parking fees not specifically exempted under this part shall remain in effect.”

Drop-box lots, where motorists place payments in a central receptacle, and parking lots staffed by an attendant are not metered and therefore are not covered under the law, Wai said.

“The overwhelming number of folks with placards can feed such a box and therefore no overall exemption is provided,” she said. “Having said that, however, those drop boxes may not be accessible to some users. If a person received a ticket and could demonstrate to the court that he/she was personally unable to feed the drop box and no one else such as a driver could feed the box, it is likely that the court would void the ticket.”

While the law does not mandate fee waivers for handicapped parking at drop-box and attendant lots, some parking lots do waive such fees. For example, at municipal drop-box lots, parking spaces for disabled drivers may be reserved, but not numbered, Wai said. This essentially makes those spaces free, because the drop-box payment method requires a stall number to assign the payment.

“If you own and manage the lot with an attendant or a drop box, you can develop your own payment structure. That’s due to internal policy, not the law — only the metered parking has limited free payment privileges under the law. That’s why it’s confusing for some people,” she said.

Bottom line: Hawaii law mandates that metered parking be free on a limited basis for motorists with valid disability parking passes, but makes no such requirement for un-metered parking, including drop-box lots and those staffed by an attendant.

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