Handicapped parking stalls

[legpain]

Does anyone else have problems with handicapped parking stalls?

My issue is where some establishments place handicapped stalls. I'm finding that some put the stalls at the far end of all the stalls making it a LONG walk to the front door.

I've read ADAAG '02 section 4.6.2 under LOCATION. Is this still in effect?

Here in CA, CALTRANS has removed the stalls right in front of a rest stop we use and placed it at the far end. If I park in those handicapped stalls in can't walk to the the rest rooms. When they were right in front, no problem.

Anyone want to comment?

John


I posted this a few days ago and have around 130 viewers.

I'M TOTALLY AMAZED THAT NO ONE HAS COMMENTED!!!

Below is the ADAAG rule for handicapped parking stalls.


4.6.2 Location. Accessible parking spaces serving a particular building shall be located on the shortest accessible route of travel from adjacent parking to an accessible entrance. In parking facilities that do not serve a particular building, accessible parking shall be located on the shortest accessible route of travel to an accessible pedestrian entrance of the parking facility. In buildings with multiple accessible entrances with adjacent parking, accessible parking spaces shall be dispersed and located closest to the accessible entrances.


Many of us have walking issues. Am I to understand that the placing of the stalls doesn't bother anyone else??? No one wants to stand up for their rights?

I am perplexed!!!

Help me, I can't walk far, 180 feet, 90 out, 90 back!!!!!!

John

[Lily Kerns]

Originally Posted by legpain

Does anyone else have problems with handicapped parking stalls?

My issue is where some establishments place handicapped stalls. I'm finding that some put the stalls at the far end of all the stalls making it a LONG walk to the front door.

I've read ADAAG '02 section 4.6.2 under LOCATION. Is this still in effect?

Here in CA, CALTRANS has removed the stalls right in front of a rest stop we use and placed it at the far end. If I park in those handicapped stalls in can't walk to the the rest rooms. When they were right in front, no problem.

Anyone want to comment?

John


I posted this a few days ago and have around 130 viewers.

I'M TOTALLY AMAZED THAT NO ONE HAS COMMENTED!!!

Below is the ADAAG rule for handicapped parking stalls.


4.6.2 Location. Accessible parking spaces serving a particular building shall be located on the shortest accessible route of travel from adjacent parking to an accessible entrance. In parking facilities that do not serve a particular building, accessible parking shall be located on the shortest accessible route of travel to an accessible pedestrian entrance of the parking facility. In buildings with multiple accessible entrances with adjacent parking, accessible parking spaces shall be dispersed and located closest to the accessible entrances.


Many of us have walking issues. Am I to understand that the placing of the stalls doesn't bother anyone else??? No one wants to stand up for their rights?

I am perplexed!!!

Help me, I can't walk far, 180 feet, 90 out, 90 back!!!!!!

John

I suspect you are going to have to stand up for your own rights in this instance. To whom have you complained? Have you talked to others who use those parking stalls and made a plan to cordinate your complaints? Have you filed a complaint with the DOJ complete with photos and measurements?

Keep us posted on what you accomplish!

This is a problem I have not encountered in this area--but there are some related ones... What I do see is that that closest place to park carts is farther from the last handicap parking space than it was to get to the door of the building. In that case I simply refuse to push my cart to its designated parking spot and leave it in the center of the handicapped section or what ever is reasonable. A time or two I have gone back in to complain--to someone who had never thought of that aspect--and no, nothing changed....

I also am doing some research on non-handicapped use of these spaces. A Walmart executive told me that Walmart bears no responsibility for enforcing those laws and that it is a matter for local law enforcement. A couple years ago I was hit in a store parking lot and the city police said that was a private lot and they had no jurisdiction over it. It is not nearly as big an issue as it used to be, thank goodness, but it makes me wonder if anyone at all is even trying to enforce the laws on handicapped parking.

[KSagal]

I have been lucky, in that while I have a parking placard, and have some mobility issues due to an injury while in the Army, I have yet to ever use my parking permit (It is designed to hang on the rear view mirror, but stays in the glove box).

Around here, I think of them as the blue zone, as most parking spaces are painted blue. A rather large issue in Massachusetts is unauthorized people buying the placards and using the prime spaces.

I have seen that most of the blue zones are in very choice locations, but I do not notice it enough, not being a patron of them. The proximity of the blue zone and the front door and the carriage corral combined is something I never even considered until the previous posts.

One thing that I have noticed in parking areas of at least two lots that I frequent for one reason or another, is that they both have spaces for Pregnant women, or women with toddlers in even better position than the blue zone. I have no heart to make pregnant women walk farther than necessary, but it seems odd to me that these two categories should take precedence over handicapped parking.

I wish you luck with this battle, and encouragement. For everyone willing to take up the banner and fight the good fight, there are several behind who want the same thing, but cannot or will not put in the effort.

Good luck to you. Keep smiling, keep educating the uninformed, and keep gliding.

[Pkelley]

Okay, I will bite. I am a 30 year spinal cord injury (C6) walking quad. I have seen over the years everyone from people with restless leg syndrome to bunions on their big toe using handicapped parking. The symbol on handicap parking stalls is a person in a chair. Handicap parking is meant to give them someplace to unload their chair, and I can assure you, these folks do not care where in the lot the handicap parking is; they're just glad there is a place they can get out of their car and into a chair. My advice to you is to forget the law and keep in mind that what you don't use you will lose and to be thankful (no matter how much it hurts) of every step you can make on your own legs. Just an old gimps opinion.

[Gihgehls]

Yeah, so if they don't look disabled and aren't in a chair, they have no place using the spots, am I right?

[rickb]

Originally Posted by Gihgehls

Yeah, so if they don't look disabled and aren't in a chair, they have no place using the spots, am I right?

If I agreed with that we would both be wrong.

[Lily Kerns]

Quote:

Have you experienced an inaccessible entrance, parking or other barriers? If you want to learn more about what “accessible” means and related laws, guidelines and standards, register for a webinar sponsored by the ADA National Network and the U.S. Access Board. This online training provides information about accessibility not just of physical environments like fitness centers, post offices or hospitals, but also transportation and information technology.

For more information visit this link: https://www.disability.gov/community...vice_providers

[rwoynaro]

I live in PA and use my Seg (with a SegSaddle) as my primary way of getting around. I can walk short distances (say < 50 feet) but the Seg is necessary otherwise and preferable as it is much quicker. I have a handicapped license plate on my car and the hanging placard in the wife's. From my experience, PA is very good about the proximity and also with having wheel-chair friendly curbs, etc. I can't recall any time where it was not the closest spot or inaccesible do to some barrier or other obstruction. I guess I have been lucky that way. I hope you have some success getting a more effective setup with the disabled spots; it is always appreciated by the true needy. I like Karl's reference as "the blue zone," I am gonna use that from now on too.
Good luck and thanks for the efforts, it helps us all.

[legpain]

O.K., good, responses!

Lily,
Yes, I’ve started by sending an email to the CALTRANS supervisor. Time will tell if they listen. I’ll be printing the ADAAG rules and presenting them to the establishments I have issues with. Then depending on responses, deal with the DOJ. Thank you!!

Karl,
YOU ARE HANDICAPPED! You state you leave your placard in your glove box. Calling them BLUE ZONES is just another way of denying that you’re handicapped. Stigma, stigma, stigma!

Please let me state a story it took me a long time to get my wife to understand.

You pull into a supermarket and there are two open stalls, one for normal and one handicapped. Which stall do you take? If you take the normal stall and leave the handicapped stall open, for the person who may be more handicapped than you, you believe you’re doing a good thing. But, the next person, odds are he/she will NOT be handicapped, has nowhere to park. Open handicapped stall you could have used.

No guilt?? Yes, we all make a decisions if we want to use the handicapped stalls based on our sense of our value, you don’t believe you’re handicapped enough to use the stalls and that’s that! But please, think about that person circling the parking lot!

As for a pregnant women parking closer? Did you ask your wife this statement? If you had she would have picked up the nearest baseball bat and beat you sillier! Really, baby sitting on your bladder and knowing that you’ll never make the restroom!!!!! Carrying an extra 60lbs. of fluid and baby!! PREGNANT WOMEN CAN HAVE MY STALL ANY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pkelley,
I’ve been suffering with back pain, fusion, for 36 years. You are suffering from what I call “judging”. How can you know how much pain anyone but you yourself feel? I can tolerate much more pain than a normal person because I’ve dealt with pain longer than even you! Should I tell you that you aren’t in need more that I? and like Karl, you shouldn’t park in MY handicapped stall because you’re not all that handicapped? My perspective!!!!!!!

“these folks do not care where in the lot the handicap parking is”, you can’t possibly know this unless you’ve ask “these folks” if they care. I think next time I’m at Sam’s Club I’ll stick around and ask. ;-)

Sorry, small rant!

Please, the wheelchair symbol is JUST A SYMBOL. It doesn’t say everyone MUST be in a wheelchair to park here!!!!!!!

I have spinal damage with fusion L3, L4, L5, S1 with cage, that’s bars and screws. I CAN’T TWIST, makes it VERY difficult to get out of a vehicle without having the door fully open. Enjoy walking while I can? You bet I DO NOT!!! Pain with EVERY STEP!!!!!!!!! Really!! (sarcasm)

You really need to educate yourself about different handicapped people.

Gihgehls,
YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RickB,
YOU ROCK TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rwoynaro,
I did some work in Long Island, I wasn’t handicapped, didn’t notice, didn’t care. I did some work in New York, I wasn’t handicapped, didn’t notice, didn’t care. I went to Segfest NH, I was handicapped, did notice, did care. I found that, as we drove around NH shopping (wife), that all the stores we parked at had handicapped stalls very close to the front door. We landed and took off at Dulles and yes, she shopped, handicapped parking was very close.
East coast is MORE handicapped friendly than Los Angeles, period!!

That’s enough for me. I’ll be reading but no more posting. I’m going to go take my blood pressure meds now!

John

[KSagal]

Wow John, that was a great rant. I do have some issues with it however.

You tell me that I am handicapped, and in denial, yet you know very little about me, and at the same time tell PKelley that he should not judge others. You stated that you can handle more pain than others, yet do not care to acknowledge that other may feel the same way. You cannot judge others whom you do not know the details for, and even those whom you do, you should not.

We are all welcome to our own perspectives, and to state them here as well.

I am not handicapped, and I am not in denial. I do have a disability but it is not stable or consistent, and I will be the judge of it, not you.

You talk about my being in denial, yet in your supermarket example, you speak of two parking spaces, a handicapped one, and a ‘normal’ one. So you are saying that you are not ‘normal’? I know I am. My normal includes a level of ability, that is greater than some, and less than some. My injured knee and shattered vertebra does not make me not normal.

As far as that example, you say I should park in the handicapped stall, as the next person in would have no place to park. What happens if that is so. If able bodied, they can park across the street and walk in. What happens if I park in the handicapped stall and the next one in is in a wheel chair, and the ‘normal’ stall does not have enough room to open the door fully? Your example is fine to make your point, but it is hardly complete.

As for the judgment you make about my wife, and her reaction, you are dead wrong. She dislikes the preggo parking more than me. She is the mother of our two children, and would be unlikely to take a baseball bat to anyone, but I would take my chances with her on the side of condemning the silly preggo spaces rather than defending them.

By the way, while it is often hard for me to walk, I do frequently choose to park farther rather than closer, when I can, because the exercise, while uncomfortable, is actually good for me in the long run, even if painful in the short.

I find your statement to PKelley that he really needs to educate himself about handicapped people is interesting, since you took no effort to educate yourself about me, yet told the world all about my denial, my wife’s relationship with me, and a whole slew of other wrong assumptions. I suggest you would do well to take your own advice, and educate yourself before you post about that which you say you know, but clearly don’t.

Again, we all have opinions, and most of the time of course, we feel we are correct. But feeling our opinions are correct does not make them so, and surely does not make us able to judge others. All we can reasonably do is respond to the statements they make, as I have done here about you. I am sure there is much more to you than I know, but I am confident that some of the judgment calls you made in your rant are based on supposition rather than fact, opinion rather than knowledge.

Still, I wish you good health, and a nice day.