Widget Gives Drivers Edge On Parking

BIRMINGHAM, MI — With new parking technology in place at four of the five parking structures in Birmingham, the city is launching a new parking widget on its website which tells drivers the number of available spaces at each parking structure. Now, visitors can go to the city website or use the mobile-enabled feature on their smartphones to click on the green and white parking logo at the top right corner of the screen.

In seconds, drivers gain easy access to current parking space availability throughout the city’s parking structures. Users may need to clear their browsing history to view the widget. With one click, users can see not only how many spaces are available at each location, but they can then review maps of the parking locations and get directions to them.

“This new technology at the structures allows us to provide better service offerings for parking in the city” stated Birmingham City Manager Joe Valentine.

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The parking widget is just one of the many upgrades made available by the new parking technology that has been installed in the last few months as a cost and time –saving measure approved by the City Commission in early 2017. The ticketless system, which is becoming a new industry standard, requires drivers to use either a debit/credit card or a pre-paid “IN” card to pay for parking.

The “IN” card can be purchased at City Hall or at the Chester Street parking office for $10, then loaded with amounts of $25, $50, $100 or $200, or with a zero balance for the in and out parker typically under 2 hours. The new system does not accept cash, and does not require use of a ticket, reducing the occurrences of backups.

More enhancements coming soon include new signs on the outside of each structure which display the real time number of spaces still available similar to the website. With the parking widget added to the home page, all drivers can access the information before coming into Birmingham.

Image courtesy of the city of Birmingham