Three months after Portland stopped providing free unlimited street parking to any vehicle displaying a disabled placard, new information released by the city on Thursday offers a startling indictment of how motorists abused the old system.

Since the city started charging for parking on July 1, the number of cars with disabled permits occupying primo metered spaces has apparently dropped by as much as 70 percent, according to Portland Bureau of Transportation data obtained by The Oregonian.

PBOT had parking enforcement officers tally the number of basic dark blue disabled placards they saw on their beats before and after the changes.

On September 10, 2013, when it wasn't uncommon for many cars with placards to occupy on-street downtown spots for weeks or months without moving, they counted 1,033 vehicles with placards hanging from rearview mirrors.

However, on Oct. 1, three months after the city began charging motorists with basic disable permits $2.40 for 90 minutes of parking, only 313 placards were counted.

Meanwhile, 26 of 105 designated disabled spaces set aside for drivers with disable placards were being used. That included 50 new metered disabled-only spots added as part of the the new parking rules.

On one enforcement beat in the heart of downtown ("Beat 3"), the number of parked vehicles with disabled placards plummeted from 31 percent to 8 percent in 372 spaces, the data show.

In fact, there were dramatic drops in several of the city's central business districts:

On "Beat 4," stretching from the west end of the Morrison Bridge to Broadway -- and book-ended by the Southwest Taylor and Stark streets -- the percentage of 313 parking spaces occupied by vehicles with disabled placards nosedived from 28.1 percent to 4.7 percent.

Just a few blocks to the north, downtown Portland's "Beat 11" experienced a similar epic drop -- from 28.3 percent of 361 spaces in September 2013 to 6.6 percent on Oct. 1.

The apparent abuse wasn't just happening in downtown Portland. Across the Willamette River in the Lloyd District, on beats 30 and 31, the proportion of vehicles with placards slid from nearly 20 percent to 3.6 percent.

Commissioner Steve Novick -- who pushed for the policy shift after years of complaints from downtown business owners and inaction by the City Council despite years of citizen task force discussions -- said it's obvious that some people were abusing the city's compassionate approach to helping disabled drivers.

"I'm also sure that some people with real mobility issues, absent the availability of free parking, have found other ways to get downtown," Novick said. "What we're seeing is that, in fact, its possible to free up spaces previously used up all day by commuters with placards."

Before July 1, a walk downtown revealed block after block after block lined with vehicles – hundreds of them, from beaters to BMWs – whose owners for years received unlimited free parking in the city's most desirable metered spaces.

Parking enforcers and many retailers had the unshakeable feeling that a lot of able-bodied commuters were getting their hands on disabled permits and scamming the city out of millions of dollars in parking revenue each year.

A basic disabled placard can be acquired from Oregon DMV with just a doctor's note.

As part of a compromise, the city's new rules set up reduced rates for motorists using disabled parking placards in metered spots.

Without set standards classifying disabilities, getting a permit in Oregon is as easy as having your physician sign a form saying your mobility is restricted. A big problem, advocates for the disabled say, is doctors want to please their patients and too often sign off on permits out of fear of losing them.

After a walkabout with a parking enforcement officer last fall, Novick noticed the same thing and moved to rectify the situation.

The city estimated that it was losing $2.4 million a year to disabled placard abuse

Meanwhile, downtown business owners had for years complained that the free disabled-parking policy was devastating them. They said they needed turnover in on-street parking for customers in order to stay afloat.

"We've heard from a lot of business owners who are happy about the rule changes," said Liza Dossick, spokeswoman for the Portland Business Alliance, on Wednesday. "Almost immediately, they noticed that more parking was opening up."

PBOT is expected to formally release maps and data Thursday showing how the use of disabled placards has plummeted in downtown Portland since July 1.

The light blue "W" wheelchair user placard still allows users to get free parking under state law.

People with basic placards still get a deal on metered parking. In a one-hour, 90-minute or two-hour spot, for instance, you can pay the maximum but stay for up to three hours.

If the city's new disabled parking ordinance has created significant hardships for people with mobility issues, Joe VanderVeer, chairman of the Portland Commission on Disability, said he is unaware of them.

At the same time, he said the commission will continue to monitor the situation. "We will work with PBOT to ensure that the disabled parking program meets the needs of our citizens," VanderVeer said.

Under Oregon law, Portland is prohibited from charging drivers with a light blue "W" wheelchair disabled parking permit (left) for curbside parking. However, on July 1, the city began charging people with dark blue permits, renewable for persons with permanent disabilities, and red temporary permits in metered spaces.

That's not to say that the change hasn't hit some unforeseen snags.

Although drivers with disabled placards could pre-purchase scratch-off permits lasting four hours, six hours or all day in a single spot, PBOT quickly realized that it had failed to accommodate people whose disabilities that make it tough to use the meters to buy any amount of parking.

Some people told PBOT that it was difficult for them to pay at the one-to-three-hour meters because it was a hardship to walk to the meters or disabilities such as arthritic fingers made it hard to use the credit card slots.

In response, the bureau designed a scratch-off dashboard permit that's good for three hours and costs $2.40.

Novick said several drivers with disabilities have purchased the scratch-off permits.

Want to know where disabled placards were most common before the new rules went into effect? Check out the interactive map of data from the central city's different parking enforcement beats.

-- Joseph Rose