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New app lets you pay for parking with your phone

You will soon be able to pay for parking with your smart phone. A new app called Passport Parking is letting drivers pay without having to actually go to the meters. You can download the app, and pay from your office, meetings, or anywhere else in the city. Mayor Steve Black says it’s a great initiative.

“I’ve had people call in and say ‘you know, I attend a meeting, and I can’t leave the meeting to go out and fill the parking meter’,” explains Black. “Or funerals, or just out shopping, and they don’t want to be running back and forth to the meter.”

James Lefebvre, who is the city’s senior municipal law enforcement officer, and has been spearheading the project, says there is going to be a 35 cent convenience fee each time you park.

“We looked at a number of different companies,” explains Lefebvre. “The lowest convenience fee that we’ve seen is 30-cents. And I mean, to be frank, the service that would have been offered was not what you’d receive with this particular company.”

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So they went with Passport’s 35 cent fee. Part of the services is that you can pay through pay pal, and don’t need a credit card. The initiative isn’t costing the city anything, and the convenience fee goes to Passport.

Councillor Noella Rinaldo says this has been a well kept secret.

“We’ve been speaking of this for a while,” says Rinaldo. “James brought this to the parking committee, which is members of the BIA and the Chamber of Commerce. We were quite pleased, this is a step forward. Two of the biggest complaints we get is ‘I don’t carry money with me anymore’, and ‘I have to go back to fill the meter if I’m out and about, and doing errands’. This is a really simple app.”

When you park downtown, you will see a zone number which will connect your meter to the app. The system is expected to be out mid-July.

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