ABSTRACT
Making curb parking accessible to people with disabilities is an essential goal, but treating disabled placards as free parking passes has encouraged widespread abuse by able-bodied drivers who park wherever they want, whenever they want, without paying anything. State governments encourage placard abuse by mandating that any driver with a disabled placard can park free for an unlimited time at any municipal on-street meter. The two-tier reform will reduce placard abuse and increase accessibility for drivers with impaired mobility, but it will also require meter payments from legitimate placard holders with less severe disabilities. Requiring all placard holders to pay at meters would eliminate the financial incentive for fraud. Nevertheless, some drivers have disabilities that severely limit mobility, and free parking at meters increases their access. Much of the new meter revenue will come not from drivers with disabilities but from the profligate and unmonitored parking subsidies now being stolen by placard abusers.
