I suddenly have an interest in Tweed Airport, the public airport in New Haven, Connecticut. I wasn’t sure it even had scheduled air service any more – it has a very short runway (and local opposition to fixing that) – so it is served by 4 flights a day to/from Philadelphia done by Piedmont Airlines.
But that’s not the point of this blurb. I’ve always been troubled by the Americans with Disabilities Act, specifically the oppressive rules about “Handicapped Parking Setasides”. They are rarely used by anyone with an actual disability, at most people “gaming the system” and police who can come onto private property to write tickets for “Revenue Enhancement”
Case in point: This is the “Metered Parking” lot – did I mention Tweed is an EXTREMELY small airport? The “Long Term” parking is only about a block from the door.
According to my count, I see 14 handicapped spots – none of which are occupied, and 20 “not yet disabled” spots containing 11 cars.
I’ve noted similar misallocation of parking over the years.
In the late ’50s and early ’60s I was attending the University of Illinois. The paraplegics there were a hardy bunch; climbing stairs balanced on their rear wheels, jumping up and down curbs unassisted, moving at high speed across campus under their own power, etc. Then the University created a paraplegic program, and within a few years the hardiness had been replaced with dependence; all the paraplegics were being pushed across campus, they waited at curbs until some good samaritan came along to move them up or down the curb; all the fancy maneuvers while balanced on their rear wheels were no longer seen.
One of the more interesting nights when I lived in Skokie, IL (1992ish) was the night there was a man riding the Skokie Swift fairly late at night. I had never seen him before or after. My suspicion a the time was he was an attorney or someone working for an attorney looking to file an ADA lawsuit. The station is now the “L” terminus of what used to be North Shore Interurban, which ran to Milwaukee, and was cut back in the 1960s when the ICC gave permission for the North Shore to go out of business. Much of their equipment wound up at the Illinois Railroad Museum in Union (highly recommended)
So that station was very old and zero accommodations for a person in a wheelchair – there were two sets of steps down from the platform to the parking lot – I believe 4 steps in all. Being the kind of guy I am, I was concerned for his well being (did he know what he was in for?) Not sure if he was a ‘regular” I had never seen before, whether the CTA employees were supposed to help him, etc… I stayed close by in case he needed help.
He seemed generally angry about the situation he was in, but didn’t ask for help. My memory is he had a set of crutches and got out of his wheelchair, got on the ground, moved the wheelchair to the bottom of the steps, and put himself back into the wheelchair. It was memorable to watch. People tend to become as disabled as you encourage them to be.
A few years ago the Univ. of TX at Austin decided to crack down on disabled-parking abusers and found an 85% of students using their relatives’ placards to gain easy access to parking lots inside the school (students usually park in “Parking C” which requires a shuttle into school). The fine at the time was $400 and it raised quite a nice slush fund for the university. A week after the crack-down ended students were again doing the same old thing. Just go to Wal-Mar and see the people using the placards and you will quickly realize the abuse is rampant.
Looking at that airport there is no one there
using it. Same at walmart if you go late at night
during the day there is never a handicap place open
but at night THERE ALL OPEN and I personally
would not care if someone parks there..
I would usually drop off my old relatives right
at the door and walk in.. Maybe something wal-mart
can capitalize on, valet parking…
A few additional observations (guesses) about that airport.
It has 4 flights a day by Piedmont Airlines to Philadelphia using turboprop planes that carry around 35 people. There are a couple planes a day that fly to Boston. So on a really busy day, probably 200 people a day use the airport. The local bus route only stops at the airport if you call them up ahead of time and make arrangements.
There is no airplane at the terminal when that image was taken – this is the closest in lot where people just park when they are picking up or dropping off people. In the four or five hours between planes, you would expect that lot to be basically empty. My conclusion is those cars in the lots are people who work in the terminal and there is no enforcement of the parking meters.
Update – I’m just the kind of guy who likes to check things out ahead of time, not when I’m in a panic. I went to the airport today. I might go to Newark Airport tomorrow on the train just for practice 🙂
I parked in the “metered lot” (there are no meters – just a warning not to park there more than 2 hours). I walked out the block to the long term parking lot and back, then spotted the US Air guy who had just closed down the service desk for the day and was nice enough to answer my questions.
The terminal itself is maybe 2000 sq feet. “Food Service” consists of a stand that maybe sells coffee, a place for the TSA person (with an Express! checkin lane) and the baggage checking place, and an office for the person who runs the airport. That’s a about it.
When I asked about city business transit, he volunteered “Are you disabled?” If you are you could park here! The Dash 8 plane won’t work with the “ramp”, so getting on board means 4 steps, although they apparently have a ramp that he volunteered could be used.
After he answered my questions, he hopped in his car in the closest spot to the door and went home 🙂 The spots to the left side of the small lot have “Reserved” signs and are in theory where the 3 or so people who work there should park.
Reading the story about handicap parking, jogged my memory about a friend of mine that had a small convience store a couple of blocks down the street from me, he was in a 4 store front “spot mall”, and it had 10 parking spaces 4 of which were handicap, it cost him $10,000 to have a ramp built, and an area painted in a rectangle with diagonal lines inside it. “City mandated”, after a complaint.
The sad part………….there wasn’t a curb or a rise in the short cement walk-way off the asphalt parking lot, just the cement bumpers that keep people from driving up on the walkway.
Another minor item is; The only people that use ” the ramp” are ………… The one’s in Motorized wheelchairs (the one’s with small red flags on 6 ft fiberglass poles) ! I never seem to be amazed.