Title: 2020-12-02 CTD.sgcap
Author: karibox

DISCLAIMER

This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format. 
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided 
in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally 
verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, 
some names and/or terms may be misspelled, and the text may also 
contain environmental sounds that occurred during the event.

**********

December 2, 2020 
CTD Raise Your Voice!
Parking, Scooters

>> Laura Perna: Hey, everyone.  Mostly welcome back.  I see a few new names.  So welcome for the first time.  I'm Laura Perna, the communications director for the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities.  I'm going to give my audio description.  I'm a white woman in my late 30s with long brown hair, dark glasses, and kind of a mustard cardigan.  I will be going over our Zoom functions and accessibility for today's meeting.  This meeting is closed captioned, which you can toggle the captions on and off.  Just let us know in the chat if you need help finding out where to find those settings.  We'll be using breakouts today.  And we'll be putting you automatically in breakouts.  You don't have to ‑‑ you won't have to do anything when we split you up into groups.  I think the way we're going to do it today, we're going to try something a little new and hopefully it goes well.  We're going to use this main room as one of the breakout rooms and turn on auto captions, and then the CART person will go into the other breakout room with everybody else.  So fingers crossed, everybody will have captions throughout the entire session.  We'll see what happens.  We'll be running a poll momentarily.  So know that that's coming up.  We've got everybody muted right now, and we'll ask you to stay muted until we go to breakout, so we'll cue you to unmute yourself.  If you need any assistance throughout the session, please feel free to use the chat box.  If you're unable to access that, you can also e‑mail us at info@txdisabilities.org.  And we'll be keeping an eye on that.  We won't be spotlighting anybody today, so speaker view versus gallery view, that is up to you.  And we are, indeed, recording.  So with that, I will turn it on over to Chase, I think.  Chase, are you doing the ‑‑ yes.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Thank you, Laura.  Again, my name is Chase Bearden, the deputy director at CTD, and my audio description is I'm a white male.  I use a manual wheelchair, wearing a plaid shirt, sitting in our guest bedroom.  For me, CTD has been working on issues, and I know we talk about this every time, our history going back to 1978.  Across the board, we work from voting to what seems like in my lifetime parking all the time, which is what we're here to talk about today.  But also appropriations and, you know, everything in between.  And our goal with these Raise Your Voice! Events is really to get that focus, bring up the things that happened last session, kind of have a good discussion about that and see where we're heading into this next legislative session.  So our goal with CTD is just to have y'all's voice heard.  It has been since the beginning.  It's to take our members' issues and bring them forth to the legislature.  So just kind of to set the experience for any of you that haven't attended, this is mainly to hear y'all's thoughts.  We're going to do about 20 minutes where we've invited a guest speaker to talk about parking with us.  And to really make sure we're hearing the issues you're dealing with, where it connecting with electronic mobile scooters or accessible parking.  So I'm going to have Jen put up a poll real quick.  And if you can't click on these to answer them, we can always send it to you at the end in the wrapup e‑mail.  But I will let Jen put that up and I will read through it for you real quick.  So the polling question we're asking if you can't see it ‑‑ 
>> Laura Perna: It's actually the second poll option.  
     >> Chase Bearden: I was going to say, that's not the one I thought it was supposed to be.  
>> Laura Perna: Yeah, sorry.  I actually just added the second poll a few minutes ago.  So maybe it wasn't showing up for Jen.  
     >> Chase Bearden: This is a basic question.  What do you have more issues with?  Is it scooters blocking accessible parking or sidewalks?  Or is it just the lack of accessible parking or other parking issues when it comes to access?  We'll give you all a few minutes to answer that.  I'm kind of interested myself.  I wasn't sure how this poll was going to turn out.  I was kind of hoping if we had a large group, it would give us a good kind of view of it.  Right now, for those of you who can't see it or might not be able to do it, it's about 50/50 with that issue.  So with that being said, we'll go ahead and leave the poll up for a minute and let y'all answer if anyone else wants to answer.  But we'll go ahead and move forward.  I want to introduce Mack Marsh.  I've known Mack for a long time.  He's been one of those people that's helped me figure out parking issues for so many people and has probably one of the most in‑depth knowledge about accessible parking in Texas and how that affects people.  So I wanted to go ahead and introduce Mack, let him introduce himself and what he does with parking mobility.  And then we'll kind of do some question and answer back and forth between he and I and then break out into some breakout sessions.  Mack, welcome, and thank you.  
     >> Mack Marsh: Thank you, Chase.  Quick description of myself, I'm a white male, use a power wheelchair from spinal cord injury.  I was injured about 20 years ago, be and one of the very first things I experienced was accessible parking abuse.  Of course, way back then, they called it handicap parking abuse or handicap parking violations.  I was surprised when I first joined this world that it was a problem.  To me, being like anybody else who didn't have a disability, didn't have experience with disabilities, I thought everybody knew what the rules were and everybody followed the rules.  And the reality is, people don't follow the rules mainly because they don't know what the rules are.  So we've spent the last ten years, in particular, specifically addressing accessible parking through the parking mobility program.  For those of you here in central Texas, if you're in the Austin area, we have a relationship with our local law enforcement where you can use the parking mobility app to report violators.  Those reports get reviewed by law enforcement.  And then a citation is issued to the owner of the vehicle.  That person has to take a class.  It's kind of like safe driving for a speeding ticket.  I know Bryson doesn't have a recollection of the speeding ticket.  But it's kind of like a speeding ticket.  You take a class, learn what the rules are, and hopefully you don't repeat offend.  What we've found is people usually don't once they know what the rules are.  If you don't live in central Texas, the app is still available to you, and in fact, we really encourage you to use the app because it gathers really valuable data.  That data is used by us to help get your community on board with that education program, the enforcement and education program.  But it is also really valuable data to help educate the lawmakers.  So there's lots of talk about accessible parking at the legislature every session.  So having data as to what's going on all across the state really helps us to educate lawmakers on what's going on.  And come up with changes in the law that make sense.  A lot of times we want change in the law, but that's not rooted in data.  It's not rooted in anything other than what we think might happen.  And that data really helps us make sure we get good rules, not just rules.  And I think we'll talk a little bit about that today.  So that's kind of where we are at this stage with parking mobility.  We're enforcing and educating right here in central Texas.  In other parts of Texas, we're gathering data.  The more people that are reporting, the more people that are using the app, the faster we can grow through other parts of the state and really start to get a handle on reducing the violations that are out there.  
     >> Chase Bearden: And Mack, that kind of reminds me, and I've told this to legislators before, in your intro, you talked about when you got injured, you didn't realize there was an issue, there wasn't enough parking.  For me, when I got injured, I was 17.  Two weeks before that, I was with my girlfriend and I parked in an accessible parking space and she wanted to go to JCPenney.  She goes, why are you parking here?  I said they're always open.  Two weeks later I broke my neck.  I kind of say karma got me on that one, and I learned a very important lesson.  I didn't realize how important it was at that young age and that's something that's not taught.  
     >> Mack Marsh: It's equally important for us to educate the disability community, ourselves.  We found that 43% of the violators in our program are people who identify as having a disability.  And so they just didn't know what the rules were.  They parked where they blocked the access aisles.  Or they forgot to put up their placard or didn't put their placard up appropriately.  Those are things that may seem minor to someone who doesn't understand this issue.  But it adds to that global problem of accessible parking abuse.  So we had to educate ourselves as much.  One of the things you said, and I think in the poll it mentions having a problem with not enough accessible parking.  As someone who uses it on a daily basis, I drive a van with a ramp, so I have to have an accessible parking space.  My knee‑jerk reaction years ago when we started this was that there's not enough parking.  What we've actually found is there's plenty of accessible parking.  It's just that it's not being used appropriately.  So we really need to get smart as a community within ourselves and using it appropriately and educating ourselves and others on how to use it appropriately.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Yeah.  And that kind of brings up and leads us into, you know, the next section of this in talking about the last legislative session.  For years, there's been bills filed on accessible parking.  I think early on, you're right.  A lot of it was emotional based.  There is no data out in the world on accessible parking and who is using it.  One of the biggest issues that we found was the basic one that, you know, if you needed an accessible parking space, you went to the doctor, they filled out a prescription.  You walked into your county tax assessor office, handed them that and walked out with two placards.  There was no education on it.  I know early on, even for myself, I drive a truck with a crane that comes around.  I didn't realize how important it was not to hang over a little bit on the striped area.  It just didn't dawn on me right away that that affected other people.  You know, last session, there was a bill filed.  It had some pros and cons.  It still does.  It was Representative Springer's bill, I believe HB‑3163.  And still, one of the things that why we wanted to support it was that was the first time there was a bill that was going to get through that actually discussed giving people something up front when they went to get their license plate or placard that had those rules.  Do you want to kind of talk about those rules and what they were and how that works?  
     >> Mack Marsh: Yeah.  So that was one of the things that really surprised me way back when we started this as well.  And it still surprises me today.  When you go and get a placard or a plate for your vehicle, if you have a disability, you're not told what the rules are.  And nobody in that system knows what the rules are.  Most physicians don't understand the nuances of accessible parking.  I can assure you no one in the county assessor's office knows the rules.  It's important that we do a better job of proactively educating people.  I was really excited about that bill, a great bill.  It's the first attempt to educate proactively.  It also, I think, supports the idea of educating reactively like we do with parking mobility where someone gets a ticket and then has an option of taking a class.  We hope to do more around that in this next session.  I think we'll talk about that, the hopes for a new bill this next session.  It also has some weaknesses in that bill.  One of the big things was in an attempt to make parking more apparent and the nuances around that parking more apparent, it changed how spaces are marked, which is a good idea.  It's a great step.  But it was not well thought through.  We didn't use a lot of data to understand what that meant.  So what we ended up doing was making a lot of accessible parking in the state unenforceable.  I'm going to show ‑‑ if I can share my screen.  I don't know if this will work or not.  No.  It's not allowing me to share my screen for some reason.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Let me set that up so you can.  Sorry about that.  
     >> Mack Marsh: Sorry about that.  So what we found was that there are over a million accessible parking spaces in Texas, and that's an estimate.  We measured almost 30,000 parking spots that are going to be out of compliance or that are currently out of compliance with those new rules.  In other words, they're not marked properly.  The new rules state that the sign has to have some indication as to what the potential fines are, the acceptable parking area adjacent to the parking spaces must have the words "no parking" in it and some other marking issues.  Those are great ideas, but we didn't implement that law appropriately.  So what happens is, be that case gets filed if either a volunteer or a law enforcement officer writes a citation, it goes to court.  It gets reviewed by an attorney.  And that attorney, the prosecuting attorney has to make a determination as to whether or not it's a legal case.  And right now, if a space does not have all of the markings that are necessary according to the law, then that space is not enforceable.  So there are over a million of those spaces now in Texas.  We need to go back and fix that part of that bill so that it can make those spaces enforceable on some minimum standards.  And there are some ways that we can do that.  But we just have to, as advocates, get better at articulating not only what it is that we desire as an outcome for these laws, but also using the data that's available to us, using the tools that are available to us to be able to advise ourselves, as well as those lawmakers and those decisionmakers on those rules based in data evidence, not just in what we think is going to work or what we hope will work or what we're passionate about working.  It's got to be grounded in concrete or we could really do some damage because what happens if those millions of spaces are unenforceable, then essentially we've become a state that doesn't have any enforcement around accessible parking at all because law enforcement isn't going to take the time to go make sure every space is marked properly if citations are getting thrown out of court.  That's not their job.  
     >> Chase Bearden: We've found the most effective way to ensure parking is enforcement that leads to education.  The fine is one thing.  Sometimes after someone has gone through, you know, had a ticket written multiple times, that's kind of the only way it's going to sink in.  But the real education piece, getting that class, being able to divert yourself from paying a fine and taking that hour or two‑hour class that explains what accessible parking is for really makes a bigger change, we've found, than anything else.  
     >> Mack Marsh: We have a violator here in the Austin area, and I'm not allowed to show you a picture of his vehicle because it actually would identify who he is.  But we have a violator here in the Austin area that in the last five years has received 57 citations for parking in accessible parking spaces.  He's paid his fine, the full fine every single time.  He's not shirking the law.  He's thumbing his nose at the law.  But it hasn't changed his behavior.  We've seen when someone takes one of the classes, it's a two‑hour class, they learn what the rules are.  But more importantly than learning what the rules are, they learn why those rules are there.  They learn about people with disabilities and learn about how what they do affects others in the community, and it changes their behavior.  We have almost zero recidivism in that population.  In the nine years we've been doing this program and educating people who received a citation, we've had six people who have reoffended over thousands and thousands of people who have gone through the class.  So that's a 0% recidivism rate.  Does it completely change behavior?  No.  Is it going to completely solve the problem?  No.  Not until we get widespread enough.  But I think this is the right step.  Having some proactive education would be a right step as well.  We hear all the time in our class people ‑‑ we do a survey at the end of the class to ask what people learned.  One of the things we ask, is there anything else you'd like to say about this course?  And invariably, they say "thank you so much.  This is the first time anyone has ever told me what the rules are, and this needs to be shared more widely. " And we agree.  We think everyone who takes a driver's ed course in the state of Texas needs to know what accessible parking is and why those spaces are important.  We think everyone who receives a plate or a placard to park in those spaces should not only be given the rules but acknowledge the rules so they understand there are consequences if I don't follow the rules.  
     >> Chase Bearden: And I think that leads perfectly into where we're heading in this next session.  Last session we had filed a bill with Senator SB‑870, if I remember correctly.  And it would have increased across the state basically the same abilities we have in central Texas with working with parking mobility in the county, if a volunteer gets the citation written through the app, the person is then able to take the course.  Not all counties or jurisdictions are willing ‑‑ and correct me if I'm wrong, Mack ‑‑ to allow to have that kind of deferred course unless it's written into law.  Do you want to talk about that?  
     >> Mack Marsh: Yeah, there's some resistance from some judges.  Judges, much like people in the disability community, all have different opinions about things.  And one of the things that they have a difference of opinion about is what they can and can't do.  Some judges are extremely liberal and take their powers to be absolute.  So they think they can do anything they want to.  Others say, well, if it's not spelled out specifically in law, then I can't do it.  So what we'd like to have is what we call enabling legislation, some legislation that says, judge, you can if you want to educate this person in lieu of just a fine.  When judges are given that option, they would much rather educate.  When we talk to judges, they all say this is a great idea.  Some say we can do it.  Others say we can't.  But they all love the idea because it gives them an option.  Right now, in law, the only penalty for an accessible parking violation is that $500 minimum fine.  That's the only option a judge has.  So that really gives them one other option.  That's to dismiss the case.  There's an 80% dismissal rate in this state.  We're not addressing this problem.  We're not solving this problem by doing anything if we're not enforcing the law.  Number one.  But number two, enforcement alone doesn't solve the problem.  Like I mentioned before, people get citations.  They pay the fine, and they continue to do it because they never learned what the rules are.  If we give judges an option, then I think they're more likely to give that educational option, take that class.  And now we get to make that fine go away.  Most people will do that.  And most judges would do it if the law enabled them to do it.  
     >> Chase Bearden: So that kind of also leads into, you know, in technology world, they call it disruptive technology.  And I think that's what the world of scooters, for those of you that may live in a city that doesn't have them yet, be thankful.  But we have little electric scooters all over Austin and other cities, too, that you may find a couple hundred on one street.  They're found at the corners near the ramps.  There was at the beginning a big fight to make sure they couldn't park those on the curb cuts.  They still do.  Even in Travis County, Austin area, say you found that accessible parking space but now you can't get down the sidewalk or up a ramp because there's three of them parked on there waiting for someone to come up, use their phone to tag it and take off writing on it.  The actual policy for Austin at the time was you called 3‑1‑1, and then 3‑1‑1 had 24 hours to contact the company to have someone come out and move it.  Well, that does absolutely nothing for anyone besides it keeps it sitting there.  The idea behind it was they figured someone, a rider, would come within 24 hours and use it and it would end up getting moved.  It's kind of one of those ‑‑ first it was really a reverse in Civil Rights because we had no ability to fight back on this.  And as we talked about accessible parking and being able to someone who parks a vehicle in that spot, right now we're stuck in the situation where you pull up and there's six of those scooters parked in the access aisle of the accessible parking spot or right in the middle of the accessible parking spot ‑‑ and I actually have a picture of one with about 20 of them that had been left there by the company, there is no recourse.  There is no way to get them fined.  In education, we've worked with the companies.  We've talked to them.  They say basically that they've given education, but it's found deep inside the fine print.  So as we move forward, that's something we have to also look at and include in any legislation we're working on is how do we make sure that any disruptive‑type technology or transportation coming forward doesn't also take away the ability for someone to have access.  I don't know, Mack.  I know y'all have gotten tons of reports about it.  If y'all have anything to say about it or if there's anything you could do.  
     >> Mack Marsh: We do.  In the parking mobility app, you can report different violation types, and one of the violation types we've built into the app is what we call a nonvehicle report.  Most people use it to report these parking spaces that are out of compliance with the current rules.  But you can also use it to report scooters or anything else that's blocking a sidewalk or blocking any other architectural improvement.  Unfortunately, there's not an enforcement mechanism there yet because these scooters aren't licensed.  They're not registered with the state.  There's no way to determine who was riding it, who left it there, other than the company that owns that scooter knows who it was because you have to register through the app to use their scooter.  We did, along with Chase, have some conversation with the scooter companies, these microtransportation companies, a couple of years ago.  I think where the answer to this lies, both in education.  Legislation, I think, is going to be important to have some real rules with some real teeth behind it.  That are uniform across the state.  But none of that is going to happen if we, the disability community, those of us who are affected by the problem, don't take ownership in the solution.  The reason that the education piece around accessibility is buried within the fine print of the scooter companies is because the scooter companies don't have people with disabilities in their face.  They're not working for them.  They're not their primary customers, they're not the people they're paying attention to.  How do we get them to pay attention to us?  Data.  When people report those scooters that are parked illegally, we can gather real world data, show the scooter companies, here's the problem.  Here's where it's occurring, here's when it's occurring, here's how it's occurring.  And we can say, these are the thousands or even millions of people who are affected by this problem.  And we're able to have a larger voice when we can take that data and tie it to the storage.  Unfortunately, not every Texan with a disability can come down to the capitol during session and tell their story.  It's going to be even harder this session, I think, to be able to come down and tell your story.  I think there will be some opportunities via Zoom or however else electronically.  But what we can do is those voices that are able to speak can be given more weight when we have data that backs them up, that says, okay, here's one story, but here's thousands of people who have similar stories and similar instances that happened.  And so that way we can really start to magnify our voices and who we are by using that data.  So the parking mobility app has a part of that.  If that's not something that the disability community wants to get behind, I think there needs to be some way that we gather data around this issue, to look at solutions.  If we don't have data, we're not going to be able to solve it because the scooter companies have data.  And their data shows that people love scooters and that they use them a lot.  And the scooter companies make a lot of money off of them, and it supports the local economies.  So that's their data.  Our data needs to say, okay, there are people who are affected negatively by this.  We don't want to do away with the scooters necessarily, because they can be good for our community, but we have to have rules that make sense for everyone.  
     >> Chase Bearden: And you know, as we move forward, these are some of the things that I know me and Mack have worked on for a long time and we're going to continue to work on for this legislative session.  I know coming up next week, we're going to try to put together, as we're getting now a better picture of how this session is going to run, there is a workgroup that was put together by the new Speaker of the House to actually address how the session is going to start and how it's going to continue running through the six months that it's going, and that includes how do we keep legislators safe, their staff safe, and those who are wanting to participate safe?  I know they're looking at a lot of different ideas on how to do that.  We may have some ability to electronically Zoom in hopefully.  But that's kind of day to day on what's happening and how that's going to work out.  But it's going to take having all of y'all's voices and anyone that you know that's run into these issues.  So we're going to break into little groups right now because we really do want to hear what y'all have run into, any other accessible parking issues or issues with scooters or sidewalks, something that really creates that barrier for people having access.  That way we can make sure it's added in.  The one thing I keep hearing from the legislators is when are we going to be done with accessible parking bills?  So it's kind of a ‑‑ if we're going to move this forward, we need to try and fix as much of it as we can so that we don't have to come back again the next session.  So we're going to break out into groups.  I want to remind y'all that when we come back, we'd love for y'all to type in the chat some of the issues and things that y'all talked about and what we talked about.  Mack, we're hoping to put you in one of the rooms to kind of be a guiding voice.  And I'll go in one of the others to really try and get a conversation going, and we want to hear what y'all have run into.  I'll let Laura take it from here on getting us there.  We'll talk soon.  
>> Laura Perna: All right, thanks.  So just real quickly, we're going to be doing two groups, one with Chase, one with Mack.  And we're going to be using the main room where we all are right now as one of those groups to kind of test out having the captioner caption in the breakout room and having auto captions in this room.  So thanks for participating in this experiment even though you didn't know that was going to happen.  A couple of tips just for whichever room you're in, you'll automatically be placed into the breakout room.  You don't need to click join or anything like that.  Do a quick sound check when you get there to make sure that your mic is on, everyone can hear you, and as Chase mentioned at the beginning of the call, some folks don't have a mic, so keep an eye on the chat for any communications from them.  If you would like to do your own audio description for anybody who is calling in by phone only or is visually impaired, we certainly encourage that.  You can ‑‑ something that we found can be helpful in group discussions is passing the mic, so to speak, by naming the next speaker.  You can also use the "raise your hand" feature if that is easier.  Let's see.  Okay.  And then for the folks that go into the breakout room, if there are any issues, there's a "call for help" button, but Chase is the person who I would typically send, so hope everything goes okay in there.  All right.  Where is my breakout button?  So I'll be sending about half of y'all into a breakout room and the other half will stay here.  I'll turn off my microphone and video so you can have the illusion of just being in a room all to yourselves.  All right.  Here we go.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Hey, how are y'all?  Don't forget to unmute.  Hey, Greg.  Hey, Kathryn, how are y'all?  
>> Greg:  Hey.  
>> Kathryn:  Hi. 
     >> Chase Bearden: I know Bryson can't unmute, so he'll write in the chat if there's anything he wants to throw out there to you.  Brittany is joining us too.  
>> Greg:  Hey, Chase, I'm Greg.  Can you repeat the prompt?  
     >> Chase Bearden: Sure.  Basically we want to hear from y'all any experiences you've had or people you know that have had issues with accessible parking.  It could be just sometimes, you know, people use placards that aren't supposed to.  It could be that they've parked sideways in the crosshatch marks.  One thing we learned using parking mobility as we were gathering data is we kept finding motorcycles that were parked in the cross lines.  When we finally started talking to them, we found out one of the companies in town that was selling them was using that as a perk saying, hey, you get to park up front in those lines.  So we had to go ‑‑ Mack went to that company and had a talk with them about that and said, hey, you can't tell people that.  That's actually breaking the law.  So it worked that we were able to track down why it was happening.  We still continue motorcycles, park in those spots all the time, scooters, other cars.  Even some of our own people who are using vans or trucks like mine because they're afraid someone else is going to park too close to them.  But what you do is when you park like that, you actually then make the next parking space over not useable.  And it kind of continues.  So we just want to hear anything y'all run into, people you know, scooter issues.  If whatever city y'all are in, if y'all have run into that.  You know, even for one of our employees who is visually impaired, he's a blind marathon runner.  Last year, someone just left it laid over.  Everyone else just steps over them.  He didn't see it and he showed up just bloody from head to toe from hitting the ground so hard.  So it affects a lot of people.  So yeah, I'll pass it on ‑‑ Kathryn, you're up at the top.  Do you want to start off and we'll kind of go around?  
>> Kathryn:  Yeah, sure.  I'll make sure, can everybody hear me?  
     >> Chase Bearden: Yeah.  
>> Kathryn:  Okay.  Well, I don't have a car currently, but I used to have one through family and everything.  I don't drive, so personally someone always has to drive me around.  So I was the one that always had the placard or the license plate on the car or whatever.  Or we'd have the license plate on the main car and then I would take a placard with me because I was the disabled party.  You know, people probably think, well, I had the license plate, I can just use their car.  No, not if you're not the disabled person, you know?  So I tried to make sure that I had the placard so that I could use it, not anyone else.  But now I don't have a vehicle right now.  So yeah, my problem more is the scooters.  And I understand that it's a wonderful way to get around.  I wish I could use a scooter, but since they're only two wheels, that was my other thought for these companies.  Why did they not think of ‑‑ well, I guess I know why.  They want something small and compact.  But there are tricycle bikes, so why not make something more accessible?  Thinking, well, yes, I live in South Austin, but five miles from downtown.  Like, the 04, so five miles up the road, you're in downtown Austin.  And every day there's scooters on sidewalks, in parking spaces, and just everywhere.  And the sidewalks, quite frankly, right outside the city where I live are already terrible.  There's bumps, there's holes.  If you're walking, you could break your ankle.  I think they're not covering the ‑‑ it's not a manhole.  It's smaller.  So I don't know what they're called.  But it's a big enough hole that if someone got their foot stuck in it, they're going to break their ankle.  So if that's the way to get their attention if they don't want to say, oh, a wheelchair can go through there, well, then you're going to break your foot.  And then the curb cuts where I live aren't good enough.  You try and get off the sidewalk and it's lopsided.  You feel like you're going to fall off trying to get to where you're going.  Or my favorite, there's a sidewalk and there's no curb cut at all.  Why is there a sidewalk there and no curb cut?  You then have to go back to where you were and go into the street, which is now unsafe because you're going against ‑‑ either with or against, either way, you're still in the street.  You're going to get hit by a car or if you're lucky enough, you're in the bicycle lane.  And then people that are on a bike are upset because they say that's for us.  That's for bicycles.  Why are you in our bicycle lane?  I can't go anywhere else.  I don't want to go in the main street.  Like you, I'm going to get hit by a car.  And even pedestrians are walking across a crosswalk getting run over by a car.  So why am I going to go in the middle of the street and risk getting hit by a car?  My only other idea was, I know it was more for buses and infrastructure, but we did pass the proposition A and B with this last election.  I think we should really get the state legislature and be, like, look, everybody wanted improvements to transportation, so why don't you try focusing on other stuff, too, when we just, you know, told you to improve transportation?  My understanding is for buses but also infrastructure.  Well, to me, sidewalks is part of the infrastructure.  So I think we could piggyback on the propositions we just had.  
     >> Chase Bearden: And the city ‑‑ in my opinion, the city over the years has been difficult to work with.  You know, a lot of times a lot of our major cities are on the verge of there could be lawsuits filed against them because of how bad the sidewalks are for accessibility.  But they're able to stay out of it by having it basically a plan.  Our plan is to fix all of these when funding is available.  And when is funding ever available?  Hardly ever.  And so when you have a bond pass like this, we need to hold their feet to the fire early on to make sure that money is appropriated and set aside and done right.  So we have six minutes.  I'll let both of y'all go.  And I won't say much more and just listen to what y'all have to say.  Greg, you want to start?  Or Brittany?  
>> Brittany:  Thanks, Kathryn.  I appreciate your thoughts.  As someone who represented adults with disabilities, I really would like to see us prioritize the funding from props A and B for mobility solutions that work for everyone.  And when you design for older adults and you design for accessibility, it actually works for kids.  It works for, you know, young adults.  It works for able‑bodied folks.  It works for everybody.  So I'd really like to see those type of design‑focused solutions get to the top of the priority list and implemented first because I feel like, you know, part of the pain we're feeling with the scooters has less to do with the scooters than it does to do with the abysmal state of our sidewalk infrastructure.  And the abysmal state of our protected lanes.  Because to Kathryn's point, the other thing we see all the time, because for many of our clients, they no longer drive either, right?  And so we are often using Uber or care attendants or transportation services or volunteers to get people around, which means there needs to be a safe place for them to enter and exit the vehicle.  And that so rarely exists.  So I would love for that to be part of the infrastructure plan as well.  So to Kathryn's point, you don't have to go back to your destination to find a safe path.  That's really silly.  The other thing that's kind of the reverse of the topic we've been talking about, family elder care has an affordable housing community on the east side of which a lot of the property was required to be parking and not accessible parking.  But it going underutilized that could been housing that we would have loved to develop into a safe place to live.  Like I said, so few of our clients drive themselves any more.  The highest priority need is a home.  So we would really love to have more flexibility in the design to make sure that we're maximizing, again, accessibility and not necessarily a solution to accessibility.  Because each site is going to have its own different demands and needs, and the capital staff is so difficult to put together, and we have so many barriers to get affordable housing bill that we would like maximum flexibility to get creative about accessibility and make sure it meets the needs for not only the folks in the building living there, but the folks who regularly visit the building like care attendants.  
     >> Chase Bearden: I think that's been a problem even near our office off of San Antonio, we had accessible parking.  Well, they're building the federal courthouse across from us.  All of that is gone.  All street parking is gone.  It was such a prime thing for us when we would have people come to visit.  They could find a spot to park.  That's going to be different now.  Greg, do you want to go now?  
>> Greg:  Yeah, you guys have landed on a lot of great stuff.  I'm also really excited about props A and B.  Kathryn, you mentioned one thing that makes me think maybe there's an opportunity to reach out to Bike Austin because I only have a bike.  I don't have a car.  I don't want a car.  But I'm in the bike lanes quite often, and I'll see, you know, folks in chairs, and I love it.  I'm, like, wow, we're all safely getting along in this safe space, and we were not on the road.  Over where I lived in east Austin, I would see him on Sixth Street, and I was like, I don't like you on Sixth Street.  He's been hit twice in his chair.  It destroys me.  When I see him in the protected lane, I love it.  I don't like to be always looking around.  I've been hit as well.  I'm a bike.  I would hope ‑‑ I don't mean to speak for the biking community, but I hope there's a lot more favor, synergies to work together and for us all to realize that our enemies are not you guys or your enemies aren't cyclists.  It's about cars mowing us down all day long.  And the pandemic has given us a good chance to rethink our streets.  I look at west 6th Street, and it has this sidewalk full of people and parked cars.  It's all not accessible parking, just metered parking.  And then four lanes of one‑way traffic that's mostly empty nowadays and then a little sidewalk again.  So back in the day, all of that space used to be for people, for horses, for bikes, whatever.  And now we've surrendered so much of our public realm to automobiles that we're starting to rethink that.  Like, what if we build our cities ‑‑ I just watched Ian Gale and he says if you prioritize people in your cities, you're going to have much better cities.  And they're much safer for getting around by all forms of transportation outside of motor vehicles.  I think we all have a great opportunity to work together more and to get more funding and safe space for all of us to move around more safely and more sustainably.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Brittany and I spoke about this yesterday.  I think the key is universal design on all transportation that has to be done before we transfer it over completely.  Because then if anybody can access any kind of mode of transportation, then it works.  Then you don't need a car as much when you're trying to get around.  Yeah, no, this has been helpful.  It's good for us to hear this from different points of view and not in a vacuum of what I deal with every day.  We shouldn't write policy based off of that.  We should hear what everyone else is.  So thank y'all.  
>> Regarding the scooters, I had this photograph I showed my colleagues of a really dashed‑up arm that our colleague William, who is legally blind and is a runner, had tripped over a scooter and gashed his arm really bad.  I offered to show it and it was too gruesome to put up on the screen.  There are outcomes to these scooters that, you know, this was a pretty bad injury.  And William is a marathon runner and this is what happened to him.  He's a marathon runner who also happens to be visually impaired.  This could happen to anyone out there.  So there are little traps out there waiting to spring.  
     >> Mack Marsh: They are.  But I also think, as I mentioned, I think there's a great opportunity to look at ways to be accessible to everyone.  And for the disability community to build some relationships, be willing to work with groups like the bicycle groups and scooter companies to find some positive and proactive ways to address these issues because it's not going to go away.  So we can't really fight them, but we can't influence them.  And we can be a part of those solutions.  
     >> Chase Bearden: I was going to jump in there real quick.  Since we only have five minutes left and we've just come back from our breakout room, seems like we caught y'all on the tail end of similar things we were talking about.  If y'all could go into the chat function and throw in some of those ideas of what you talked about right now while we wrap up.  I will say, we had that same discussion about working more closely, especially in the city of Austin where they just passed proposition A and B where there's funding available, working with those in the bicycle world in the safe lanes.  Brittany talked about making sure as we redo the infrastructure, we have designated sidewalk infrastructure that allows for that room for scooters to be parked and that way they're out of the way and not in the main flow of traffic.  So I think there's a lot that even just from our discussion in our group, that we can work on with where we're heading in the future.  But for us, you know, I think we can take a lot of this and add it into what we're working on.  From there, I'll let y'all ‑‑ I don't have the chat function up right now.  But yeah, collaboration.  I think that's what's going to get us there.  I think that's what Brittany is talking about.  So we'll keep going through these.  And y'all keep adding to them.  Dennis, I'm going to kick it over to you because I forgot a list of our sponsors, and I know you can rattle them off the top of your head.  
>> Dennis:  Oh, man, that's so amazing, Chase.  I'll tell you what.  Let me see here.  And I will pull that up.  But I can tell you that we've done these ‑‑ I think this is our 12 Raise Your Voice! Session.  And all of these are free.  Free to anyone who participates.  And a lot have.  The reason it's free, it really isn't free.  It does have a cost, but that cost is picked up by our sponsors.  From the lowest to the highest, shield healthcare, Molina healthcare, MCNA Dental, care source, Bristol‑Myers Squibb, DentaQuest, AstraZeneca and Amgen.  Superior health plan, CDS in Texas and Pharma and our top level sponsors that have made this happen all year long have been Amerigroup and united healthcare.  We really appreciate allowing us to do this community organizing.  We thank them very much.  
     >> Chase Bearden: And we have one more left in this series that we're doing next week, December 9th.  On the legislative session and hopefully by then, we'll have a better understanding of how it's all going to play out.  And also maybe a little bit of a training for those of you that might not have ever used Texas legislature online so that you can track bills, listen to when hearings are going to be or watch any of the legislative session going on.  We feel like sometimes just helping people run through that so they know how to use it, it's really useful.  We are going to start more of these, a third round, basically, be once the legislative session starts.  And I think we've been kind of kicking the ball around and figuring out what's going to be the best.  But part of that idea is not just to talk about one topic during the session.  It's going to be to make a continued platform to update everyone that wants information about what's going on this week at the legislature that focuses on disability and what can you do that week?  You know, action items like here's this hearing coming up.  You could send this to this legislative office and trying to keep people informed.  We're still working out how that's going to work, but we want to keep people involved to make sure they can have their voice heard during the session.  With that, I will wrap it up.  I know Laura might have something to close it out with on her followup e‑mails.  And I will say Bryson in the comments did say that Dennis looks like Obi-Wan Kenobi with the flu.  
     >> Mack Marsh: Thanks, everybody.  Look forward to anybody who has questions or comments.  Look us up at parking mobility.  We'll be happy to help you out in your community.  
>> Thank you, Mack.  
>> Laura Perna: I just dropped into the chat a feedback survey for today.  It's just a couple minutes.  Then the registration link for next time if you'd like to join us on what's going to be a session with a lot of questions.  I don't know if there will be a lot of answers, but it's important to ask the right questions.  
>> Absolutely.  
>> Laura Perna: And I'll keep the room open for a few minutes if y'all want to continue chatting or asking questions about, you know, a particular anything at all.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Yeah, that has been the benefit of not having to come up with the office, not dealing with scooters.  No one parks in my spot at the house.  
>> Dennis:  You know, Chase, they're creeping down south, getting closer and closer.  They're in my neighborhood now.  
     >> Chase Bearden: About a year ago we went for a walk in our neighborhood.  And we're far, far south.  And there was three of them parked sideways on the sidewalk that had just been dropped off, just randomly.  No one in our neighborhood.  There's nowhere you could go to actually access anything from there.  I think they put them out there because they were in trouble for not putting them in all different parts of the communities.  I don't know.  
     >> Mack Marsh: I recently bought a new house and moved, and there are absolutely no scooters anywhere near my house.  They would have to have cow pies all over them because I'm actually in Liberty Hill. 
>> Ted:  I'm curious, if these things are just battery‑operated moped bicycle things ‑‑ 
     >> Mack Marsh: They're kids' toys.  
>> Ted:  I don't understand why they can't put bike racks for them to be put in.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Because they found that with data, more people would use them if they were spread out all over the place.  And if they have to walk another 20 feet to an area where it's designated, they wouldn't get as much of a flow.  But that is where we'll have to go.  They have to be put in designated areas.  
     >> Mack Marsh: Their primary market is my kids' generation, and they rode these razor scooters back in ‑‑ 
>> Ted:  Uh‑huh.  My younger brother is 21 years younger than I am.  And there's 30 years separating the oldest and the youngest.  
     >> Mack Marsh: So the way that they learned to use these was to just throw them out in the front yard and dad would pick them up.  That's where we've come as a society.  Now it's time for us dads to say enough is enough.  Put your toys away.  Let's get busy making our community accessible.  
     >> Chase Bearden: And it just looks trashy.  When you get a couple hundred laying on the ground on the sidewalk, it looks bad.  
     >> Mack Marsh: I tell you, we went to San Antonio about a year and a half ago for just a fun weekend, went down and played tourist in San Antonio.  Hadn't done it in a while.  Went to go down to the Alamo, and we couldn't get within a block of the Alamo, two blocks of the Alamo, because the scooters were everywhere.  It just took away from what San Antonio is meant to be.  And even though there's a lot of the tourist trap kind of places down there, the scooters just made it worse.  It wasn't just for us.  I heard a lot of folks that didn't have obvious disabilities complaining about them, too.  So we just have to find a way to deal with these things better. 
     >> Chase Bearden: Yep, I agree.  
>> Kathryn:  I was speaking to Brittany privately.  She gave me her info.  I said I'm on the mayor's committee for persons with disabilities.  I'm a commissioner there now.  So anything y'all want, I know you talked to them, too, obviously.  But anything you want brought to the committee, because I just told them I want the propositions to be brought up in our meeting hopefully in January or February.  But anything y'all want brought up in that committee, I'll bring up there, too.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Thank you, Kathryn.  
     >> Mack Marsh: If you wouldn't mind giving me a shout, I have some things I'd like to discuss with you relative to that committee and to the Austin program.  
>> Kathryn:  Okay. 
>> Ted:  Joanne and I use paratransit or metro lift as it's known in Houston because obviously, I can't drive being blind and Joanne doesn't drive anymore.  And prior to the whole nursing home lockdown business, we would go out quite a bit, either from here, this nursing home, or the one we were at before.  And it never ceases to amaze me that these delivery trucks ‑‑ and I brought up the idea of delivery trucks parking full on or half on or whatever in front of, like, say, a liquor store, grocery store, convenience store, even restaurant.  Joanne couldn't push me up the ramp because there's not enough width room for the wheelchair.  It's enough for a dolly to go up with boxes but not a wheelchair.  But having said that, the delivery trucks and other vehicles would even park in front of the wheelchair ramp in front of the nursing home.  And it just never ceases to amaze me, the ignorance or stupidity of people.  Don't you think that by and large if people are wanting to leave and they're in a nursing home, 90% of the residents are in a chair or a walker.  
     >> Mack Marsh: Unfortunately, a lot of people in the community, in particular delivery drivers, seem to think that we don't go anywhere or do anything.  And that their industry is more important than our business.  What they don't get is that what they're delivering can't be sold to us if we can't get in the store.  And they won't have a job.  And those are the sorts of things we have to get better at articulating as well, is our market power within the disability community.  We are trying to get into these businesses to buy the things that you're bringing.  So those are the types of things I like to say to delivery drivers when they get in my way and they go, I've never heard that before.  It does make them think.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Yep.  
>> Ted:  And a side note to the parking, there was a restaurant across the street from Woodridge, the nursing home we used to live at.  My dad, just easy to walk across the street to go to this restaurant.  You go down the ramp or in my case, my dad would just back me off of the curb into the driveway of the nursing home, go down the driveway and then cut across the street to the restaurant.  But once we got to the ramp going up to the restaurant sidewalk, it's a restaurant.  There was a church there.  And I think there was a couple other businesses.  The couple of other businesses put all kinds of furniture outside of their door or planters, large clay pot planters and such, where you could almost not even get to the restaurant for all the crap that was on the sidewalk.  And it wasn't scooters.  It was whatever these establishments wanted to put out in front of their door.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Yeah, and I'm kind of wondering with COVID ‑‑ I haven't been really out any.  Because outside dining has become the in thing that you can have more people if there's more barriers because of that, I don't know, because I haven't really left the house.  So in the future, I think sometimes as we go back, you may see them not want to reduce the number of outdoor, now that the city hasn't been enforcing that, they can only do so much.  So that might be something we have to keep an eye on.  But I think we have to wrap it up because the captioner is going to have to go soon.  But thank y'all for joining us, and hopefully we'll see you all next week.  And have a good week.  
     >> Mack Marsh: Thanks, everybody.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Thank y'all.  Thanks, Mack.  
     >> Mack Marsh: Enjoyed it.  
>> Kathryn:  I sent you my e‑mail, Mack.  
     >> Chase Bearden: I think he got it, but I will make sure.  
>> Kathryn:  Thank you.  
     >> Chase Bearden: Thank you.  Bye.