Seattle Department of Transportation is planning on replacing all its parking pay stations between this summer and the end of 2016 with new technology.
SDOT has implemented a one month trial of new parking pay station options, starting today and continuing through March 14, along Fourth Avenue between Stewart and Bell streets. There will be seven different models being tested, from four different vendors.
During the trail, SDOT invites the public to provide feedback regarding the aesthetics, ease of use and impression of each of the pay station models by completing a survey available online.
According to SDOT, “the new technology will provide a higher level of customer service and communications reliability, and will be better able to handle more complex parking rate programming requirements.” The new parking pay stations are also set to better integrate with other current and future parking management technologies and systems, from pay by phone to Seattle Police Parking Enforcement.
Seattle has about 2,200 parking pay stations that control paid parking for about 12,000 on-street parking spaces in Seattle. The oldest pay stations were first installed in 2004 and are coming to the end of their useful lives.
I am loving the “Pay by Phone” app. I love that it gives me a reminder when my time is about to expire so that I can increase my time without having to run back to the meter.