DDOT expands ParkMobile pay by phone parking program

‘Obey…the 2-hour parking’
courtesy of ‘Hoffmann’

With the pilot program completed, and a winner chosen, DDOT announced this afternoon that pay-by-phone parking is now available in a large portion of Northwest DC, with more meters and multispace areas coming in the near future. By the end of July, every metered and multispace metered space in DC will support the ParkMobile service, allowing drivers to pay for parking with credit cards with a simple phone call.

The currently available areas are mostly north of I Street NW, west of 9th Street NW, south of T Street NW, and east of Wisconsin Avenue NW. Click through for a bit more of a map, and a link to a geotagged map.

Tom Bridge

I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.

8 thoughts on “DDOT expands ParkMobile pay by phone parking program”

Unfortunately, the DC parking enforcement folks don’t actually check to see if you’ve paid. I paid $6 for 3 hours of parking via ParkMobile during an “unlimited” time period, and received an “expired meter” ticket about 45 minutes into that time. The convenience of paying by phone is far outweighed by the need to contest the parking ticket.

Jill,

Give the park mobile guys a call, they got my ticket overturned for me when that happened. Didn’t have to do anything but call their hotline that’s on the website and they took care of everything.

Thanks, Tom. I called ParkMobile, and also contested it on the DC website. I am pretty confident I won’t have to pay it, but it seems to me that the district is not really doing its job if they offer this option but then don’t honor it. My understanding of the system is that they can look it up on their handheld device and see whether you’ve paid, which they clearly did not do. It’s a great idea in theory, but not in practice. I should not have to contest a ticket for parking I paid for!

I’m with you jill! I got a ticket 1 hour into a 2 hour parking session using Parkmobile and I called them immediately and sent a photo ELEVEN DAYS AGO. All I keep getting is a fricken bounceback message saying that they have a “high volume” of requests. Who wants to go through the headache? Has anyone actually appealed their Parkmobile ticket with the electronic parkmobile reciept and won? (vs. waiting for Parkmobile to handle the ticket for you?)

Yeah, I parked this weekend at one of the parkmobile spaces in DC. Paid by phone, walked away, and six minutes later had a ticket. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect the DC city government to be competent (i.e. have the ability to properly execute a program like this), but I wouldn’t expect a formerly reputable company like parkmobile to be accepting payments when it is clear the DC parking maids are not checking to see if people have paid. Ridiculous. And I’ve notified parkmobile of the ticket, and am going on day 5 of no response from them (other than a high volume email). Absurd. Park mobile did (and is doing) a terrible job of executing this program in DC. You’ll still get a ticket!

It’s not Parkmobile’s fault that you got a ticket here, RMiller. That’d be on DCDPW’s meter maids. Parkmobile *will* get that ticket annulled.

I paid a two hour meter fee today…an hour into my 2 hour block there was a ticket on my car. How does THAT work. I don’t care who’s fault it is….DCDPW & ParkMobile needs to work together…the headache this is causing is totally unnecessary.

This one’s all on DCDPW, Markeeda, their people still need to learn to pay attention to their handhelds, which will let them know there’s a valid parking session.

jill on July 11, 2011 at 11:34 am said:

Unfortunately, the DC parking enforcement folks don’t actually check to see if you’ve paid. I paid $6 for 3 hours of parking via ParkMobile during an “unlimited” time period, and received an “expired meter” ticket about 45 minutes into that time. The convenience of paying by phone is far outweighed by the need to contest the parking ticket.
Tom Bridge on July 11, 2011 at 11:44 am said:

Jill,

Give the park mobile guys a call, they got my ticket overturned for me when that happened. Didn’t have to do anything but call their hotline that’s on the website and they took care of everything.
jill on July 11, 2011 at 11:53 am said:

Thanks, Tom. I called ParkMobile, and also contested it on the DC website. I am pretty confident I won’t have to pay it, but it seems to me that the district is not really doing its job if they offer this option but then don’t honor it. My understanding of the system is that they can look it up on their handheld device and see whether you’ve paid, which they clearly did not do. It’s a great idea in theory, but not in practice. I should not have to contest a ticket for parking I paid for!
Lisa Lisa on August 10, 2011 at 9:21 pm said:

I’m with you jill! I got a ticket 1 hour into a 2 hour parking session using Parkmobile and I called them immediately and sent a photo ELEVEN DAYS AGO. All I keep getting is a fricken bounceback message saying that they have a “high volume” of requests. Who wants to go through the headache? Has anyone actually appealed their Parkmobile ticket with the electronic parkmobile reciept and won? (vs. waiting for Parkmobile to handle the ticket for you?)
RMiller on August 17, 2011 at 8:26 pm said:

Yeah, I parked this weekend at one of the parkmobile spaces in DC. Paid by phone, walked away, and six minutes later had a ticket. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect the DC city government to be competent (i.e. have the ability to properly execute a program like this), but I wouldn’t expect a formerly reputable company like parkmobile to be accepting payments when it is clear the DC parking maids are not checking to see if people have paid. Ridiculous. And I’ve notified parkmobile of the ticket, and am going on day 5 of no response from them (other than a high volume email). Absurd. Park mobile did (and is doing) a terrible job of executing this program in DC. You’ll still get a ticket!
Tom Bridge on August 17, 2011 at 8:39 pm said:

It’s not Parkmobile’s fault that you got a ticket here, RMiller. That’d be on DCDPW’s meter maids. Parkmobile *will* get that ticket annulled.
Markeeda Spencer on September 12, 2011 at 9:22 pm said:

I paid a two hour meter fee today…an hour into my 2 hour block there was a ticket on my car. How does THAT work. I don’t care who’s fault it is….DCDPW & ParkMobile needs to work together…the headache this is causing is totally unnecessary.
Tom Bridge on September 12, 2011 at 9:59 pm said:

This one’s all on DCDPW, Markeeda, their people still need to learn to pay attention to their handhelds, which will let them know there’s a valid parking session.