By Jordan Valinsky 4/09 1:31pm

App Ecomony

Fancy parking meter. (Photo: Flickr)

City Unveils Exciting New App That Lets You Refill Your Parking Meter

Be gone, parking meter anxiety!  Today Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled  a new app that lets users refill their meters remotely, thus eliminating the debilitating mental condition of worrying when the parking meter maid is going to strike next.

The free pilot program is currently being tested on nearly 300 meters in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, according to a press release from the Mayor’s office. The New York Post notes that the initiative was announced in 2009 but is now finally being deployed. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 1/19/12 10:12am

Lovely Rita

HOW DO THEY WORK?

City Experiments With Street Sensors to Build a Parking App That Shows Available Spots

At a press conference in the Bronx yesterday, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced that the city would be installing 177 parking sensor. No one tell the Juggalos, but the sensors work using magnets. They can sense when a vehicle is present, as well as the moment a car enters of leaves a space and an individual vehicle’s “magnetic signature,” reports StreetsBlog.

For the next three months, the city will be testing to determine whether the sensors can stand up to “the rigors of the streets of New York,” said Ms. Sadik-Khan. The eventual goal is to develop a smartphone app that tells drivers how many on-street parking spots are free on a particular block. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 8/16/11 2:40pm

Tech and the City

parking meter

Pay for Parking By Phone and Get a Text When the Meter’s Low–If the City Can Find a Payments Provider, That Is [RFP]

The city is looking to improve the nickel-and-dime-based technology that fuels ours parking meters, and it’s on the hunt for someone with the technology to help. ”New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today announced a Request for Proposals for a pilot program to allow motorists to pay for parking using cellular phones and electronic devices,” the agency says.  An electronic system would eliminate the need to involve dirty pieces of metal in the transaction and allow drivers to pay in a wider range of increments. The city hopes to roll out a test program with about 300 parking spaces, the location of which has yet to be decided. Read More