Here we have another slow motion public relations train wreak (seems to be never ending) that will take many hours of your time to put lip stick on this pig + public relations consultant + lawyers when these minorities test your policy in the courts, etc.

So per your calculations – the 50 cents / week you get for this tariff will never offset the costs you are inevitably going to incur implementing your bull headed policy.

Do you have any empathy for Portia and Walk in my Shoes?

Reserved parking for people with disabilities should be a legal requirement, not just a courtesy. Permits PWD should not have to pay for, plates maybe or repeated issuing of permits but initial permits nor renewals should NOT have a charge.
This is wrong! If you or your family member has a disability, please indicate your dislike for this fee.

CoH needs to better monitor who has a disability? I would rather want to know what CoH have tried doing to reduce the abuse before introducing a fee. If the CoH followed our health stats they would find that our chronic illness are on the rise, have they even studied our amputation rate, our RTA incidence.

Have they considered the following: Qualifying Disabilities For Plates or a Parking Permit for People With Severe Disabilities:

A qualifying disability is one or more of the following impairments, disabilities or conditions that are both permanent in nature and affect mobility:

Use of portable oxygen;
Legal blindness;
Limited use, or no use, of one or both legs;
Inability to walk 200 feet without stopping;
A neuro-muscular dysfunction that severely limits mobility;
A Class III or IV cardiac condition (American Heart Association standards);
Severe limitation in the ability to walk due to an arthritic, neurological or orthopedic condition;
Restriction because of lung disease to such an extent that forced (respiratory) expiratory volume for one second, when measured by spirometry, is less than one liter, or the arterial oxygen tension is less than sixty mm/hg of room air at rest;
Any other physical or mental impairment not previously listed which constitutes an equal degree of disability, and imposes unusual hardship in the use of public transportation and prevents the person from getting around without great difficulty.

CoH educate yourself on alternatives and stop trying to make a buck off of the vulnerable.

It is a shame that those who most likely would not even bother have a car have to have one because there is no adequate public transport to get around.

I am reminded of the Newport, OR. bus system which I rode in last year & had a good chat with the very friendly driver. It is a privately owned company that gets a city paid subsidy to make up for the very cheap fares.

It runs on a route, sort of, & a time schedule, sort of. The buses are all small, similar to what rental car companys use as shuttles, & all are wheelchair accessible. They are all GPS & radio equipped & are controlled, sort of, by a dispatcher who knows where they are at any time & redirects as needed.

They have routes, but they deviate from the route to pick up or drop off elderly or handicapped as directed by the dispatcher, giving those who need it door to door service like a taxi, so long as the deviation from route is not far.

The truth is, disabled persons and the elderly have NO CHOICE but to depend on their own transportation, or the transportation of a family member, because Bermuda has not seen fit to set up a para-transit system to help them get around. I say this as the wife of a disabled person who experiences these difficulties first hand.

Our buses are not accessible. Despite having “wheelchair buses”, a person in a wheelchair cannot ride them, due to 1) the inaccessibility of a great number of our bus stops, 2) the lack of ramps to allow wheelchair users who cannot get up to roll onto the buses and 3) the lack of training for PTB bus drivers as to how to secure a wheelchair with travel straps when the person is on the bus.

The Project Action Bus, run by a charity, is very good, but frequently oversubscribed due to demand. One bus and one man (thank you Shooby) is not an answer to our para-transit problems, and as much as they would like to take every disabled/ elderly person to and from every appointment, grocery shopping trip, etc who needs it, they cannot.

So, I see no need to criticize any disabled/ elderly person who chooses to have their own vehicle to simply to do what they need to do. Having a vehicle does not mean they necessarily burn tons of gas driving everywhere everyday, or that they pay for top of the line insurance coverage instead of third-party.

Furthermore, many elderly and disabled people are receiving some form of Government financial assistance. In fact, the majority of people receiving Financial Assistance are seniors. So, when you talk about them paying for gas and insurance, it is actually WE, the taxpayer who are paying for the gas and insurance. And thanks to Corporation of Hamilton, you will paying the $25 fee for each disabled/ senior person on assistance as well.

I guess Bermuda is really another world.

How about we deal with real problems like the fact that the seniors pension is not being addressed correctly. That persons continue to ignore the handicapped spaces and use their Bermudian parking lights to highlight the fact that they are too lazy to walk but just dropping in to pay a bill or pick up a mate that isn’t actually there.

Abuse of the tag in the US is one of my pet peeves. Far too often a car with a tag is seen pulling into a handicapped spot & out hops a young perfectly able person.

The hostility of this latest policy from CoH to those on the margins will inevitably impact the elderly as they also require similar considerations to those above (care givers, etc.). Yet another example of the blinkered, short term, ham-fisted policies City Hall only seems capable off. With an aging population you wonder who dreams this stuff up.

So who owns this one. Council or technical officers or both?

Perhaps “Inquiring Minds” can provide insight as he/she is obviously a proxy for the shot callers at CoH