Meet the Wheelchair User Solving Accessible Parking Abuse

After 15 years of collecting data and working to improve the accessible parking system, Mack Marsh is confident he has the solution to end accessible parking abuse. Not only that, he can sum it up in one word: education. 

Before you laugh, consider that Marsh isn’t just out here spitballing. He’s one of the few people with tangible success tackling one of the most vexing and rampant accessibility issues in America. His nonprofit, Parking Mobility, collects violation reports from around the world and has implemented offender education programs for communities across Texas. “We’ve got one county here in Texas, where the third year in the program, we issued over 3,000 citations in that county, and not a single citation was issued to a resident of that county,” he says. So, in three years, his team educated an entire community.

Marsh knows he and his team have found an effective solution because they have the real-world data to prove it. “We’ve had over 25,000 people that have gone through our offender education course and we’ve only had eight repeat offenders,” he says. “That’s almost a 0% recidivism rate, which is unheard of in a program like this.”  

For Marsh, the biggest remaining question is how to scale up the program so it starts making an impact across the country.  

A (Heat) Stroke of Genius  

Fittingly, Marsh’s road to becoming one of the nation’s leading advocates for accessible parking reform began with someone blocking the space for his ramp. Just a few months after getting out of rehab for the 2001 spinal cord injury that made him a C6 quad, Marsh was attending a baseball game with his young son. When the Louisiana heat started to catch up to him, he and his son went to get in the van — only to find someone had parked in the striped area, blocking his entry. His son ran to get help, but it was too late.  

“I didn’t realize that my body doesn’t regulate its temperature,” he says. “By the time my son got back, I had passed out from heat stroke and left for the hospital in an ambulance.”  

Marsh’s frustration was compounded by the realization that the person who had blocked his access never learned the impact of his actions. “When that guy got back from his ball game, he got in his car and left and never knew what happened. He never got educated,” says Marsh. “That really set me on a course to better understand this issue.”  

Exasperation Into Action 

Marsh and a small team launched Parking Mobility in 2010. In its early iterations, the nonprofit revolved around a free app that made it easy for users to report disabled parking violators using their smart phone camera. “I was exasperated as to why people couldn’t solve this problem — why law enforcement wouldn’t do anything about it and why judges weren’t doing anything about it,” he says.

A self-professed “data guy,” Marsh envisioned the app as a data collection tool that would help advocates show policymakers the need for reform.  

The app gathered over 1,000 reports per week, and the additional data was telling. It highlighted two critical issues: 1) a lack of education, and 2) fines weren’t changing behavior. “People think punishing violators will make them change their behavior, but the recidivism rate amongst people who get a ticket — people who pay the fine and then repeat offend — is over 60%. So high fines don’t change behavior,” Marsh says.  

Parking Mobility worked to develop a solution that incorporated these realities and also the fact that confronting violators on the spot rarely achieves the desired impact.  

“People who are confronted at the point of infraction go into fight or flight. If they go into fight mode, they’re going to justify a lot and say ugly things. They’re going to escalate the issue, but it’s not going to change their behavior. They will repeat offend,” he says. “If they go into the flight mode, they tend to apologize and promise never to do it again. The reality is, they do do it again — because it doesn’t educate them. They’re not open to that education at the point of infraction.”  

A Better Solution  

Violators caught via the Parking Mobility app receive a ticket in the mail a week later, informing them they have an option to take a class instead of paying the fine. “That drives them into that education, which then engages them in a really positive manner, and not in a negative, punitive way,” he says.  

Parking Mobility tailors its education programs to local rules, regulations and customs. It currently operates these programs in 15 Texas communities and is looking to expand. One major metropolitan Texas city told Marsh it loved his program but didn’t want to implement it because it couldn’t afford to lose the $3.5 million in revenue it generated from accessible parking violators.  

Undeterred, Marsh and Parking Mobility continue to seek out local partners nationwide. Ideally, Parking Mobility would like to partner with local nonprofits to reach out to legislators about adopting their program. “[We need] local superstars that are willing to use the app correctly and willing to work with us to talk with and learn how to talk with their community leaders,” he says. Enforcement can help nonprofit partners generate revenue, as Parking Mobility shares a percentage of the contracts it signs with local municipalities in addition to sharing violation and education fees.  

United Spinal Association recognized Marsh’s efforts in 2024 by selecting him as the recipient of the first-ever James J. Peters Community Builder Award, honoring an individual who has achieved significant social progress for wheelchair users in the realm of rights, support services, accessibility or career advancement.  

Marsh has a clear message for anyone who has been affected, frustrated and even enraged by accessible parking violators. “I get being angry. I do. I’ve gotten angry before myself, but you gotta direct that anger in a positive direction. You’ve gotta be able to take a proactive approach to it. Get involved with a program like Parking Mobility, or if you already have a volunteer program in your community, become a part of that so that you can address this issue in a proper manner,” he says.

To find out more about Parking Mobility, visit parkingmobility.com, or email Marsh at mack@parkingmobility.org. For answers to all of your questions about disabled parking, including enforcement, advocacy and more, make sure to download United Spinal’s The Complete Guide to Accessible Parking. This free e-pamphlet was created by a working group of United Spinal members to educate the public and promote better enforcement of disabled parking.