Forget quarters, parking app will do the job

PHOENIX — Ten years from now the only place you may find a parking meter that takes quarters may be in a museum.

Parking meters that take credit cards, phone apps that allow you to dial in the parking fee. Technology that is here now and will only grow in the future and all on display at the Phoenix Convention Center through Wednesday.

Cindy Campbell with the International Parking Insititute said the phone apps will allow a person to dial up extra time on the meters. Goodbye, pricey parking ticket.

“You simply go to the app of your phone and simply renew for as little amount of time or as much as you need and then again it’s to help avoid ever getting that parking citation.”

At Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport parking garages and lots, the numbers of available spaces are posted. That would render circling the block in downtown Phoenix looking for a spot obsolete.

That signage is coming to street corners in the future.

“You would approach a parking area and it would say it’s full but it will give you an idea of where to go for parking. It’s all intended to keep us from driving in circles,” Campbell said.