New York City passed a major milestone this week, introducing a new app that helps motorists find and pay for parking using a smartphone. The pilot program for the app will be near Fordham University in the Bronx and will include 264 parking spaces along nine blocks.
“These new initiatives are just the latest examples of our work to bring parking and driving in New York City into the 21st century,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a media release.
Called PayByPhone, the system will use wireless sensors placed in parking spaces so that drivers can monitor real-time parking availability. Using a smartphone, drivers can select and pay for a parking space without the usual frustrating search. Mayor Bloomberg’s administration said the new technology would help ease congestion.
PayByPhone has already been used successfully in many cities, including San Francisco, Miami and London. Officials haven’t said how much a citywide automated parking program will cost in the Big Apple, but San Francisco’s SFPark cost the city and the Federal Highway Administration $20 million.
A real-time parking map for the area around Arthur Avenue and East 187th Street is already up on the city Transportation Department’s Web site and shows parking availability by block. After parking and paying, the PayByPhone app will send drivers a text when the time on their parking spot is about to expire. Administration officials said parking enforcement officers would be able to scan license plates to see who had paid and who had overstayed their welcome.
PayByPhone has a YouTube video showing how the system works. Not everyone owns a smartphone, but not to worry, city officials said. PayByPhone – minus the mapping function, of course – can also be accessed from a touch-tone phone.