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Expect changes when paying for parking in Newark

Delaware Public Media

The City of Newark is spending nearly $500,000 to replace its parking meters and off-street lot payment systems with 54 parking kiosks over the next year. 

 

In the new system, users will pay for parking by entering their license plate number — rather than paying a meter next to their spot. 

The system will connect to a smartphone app where users can extend parking time. 

It will also accept quarters, validations from participating businesses and all major credit cards, according to officials. 

Newark city spokesman Kevin Liedel says the new system will be more convenient for customers — because it lets a user pay to extend parking at any of the kiosks, even if their car is parked near a different one.

“If you’re, say, on Main Street eating lunch, you do not have to go away from your table to actually re-up your car. You can do it by text,” he said. “Or, let’s say you do get up from your table, you don’t have to walk very far to re-up your car in the parking meter. You can just go to one of the kiosks.”

Liedel calls the new system a “much needed update.”

“The new kiosks are solar-powered. They require less maintenance, less upkeep, that kind of thing. So they’re actually more affordable,” he said. “So we can actually afford to add more, therefore we have more spaces — I think it’s 150 in total more spaces.”

Liedel says the additional spaces come from a variety of sources, including expansion of one lot and a rule change in another. He says they do not make up for the temporary loss of parking during Main Street construction, and don’t take into account the loss of public parking from the incoming Hyatt Hotel there.

City officials say off-street lot rates will be reduced to keep Newark's rates competitive with other parking options.

The first new parking kiosks in the municipal lot behind the Main Street Galleria are expected to go online early next month. 

The city will continue to replace on- and off-street systems through next summer. 

 

Sophia Schmidt is a Delaware native. She comes to Delaware Public Media from NPR’s Weekend Edition in Washington, DC, where she produced arts, politics, science and culture interviews. She previously wrote about education and environment for The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, MA. She graduated from Williams College, where she studied environmental policy and biology, and covered environmental events and local renewable energy for the college paper.
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