The next time you’re running errands in Wheaton Triangle and run out of quarters, you won’t be out of luck, at least if you have a credit card and a cell phone.
Montgomery County recently expanded their pay-by-cell parking program to Wheaton’s Parking Lot district, roughly the same area defined by the Sector Plan. Almost all of the meters at the county lots (including the largest, Parking Lot 13 inside Wheaton Triangle) or parking meters along the street in the downtown area have added pay-by-cell capability.
830 meters in Wheaton now have the service, joining other parking districts in Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Montgomery Hills.
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The company that won the contract, MobileNow, is based out of the Rockville Innovation Center.
“It’s neat to have it be a county-based business,” said Esther Bauring, a spokesperson for the County said.
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MobileNow also has offices in New York and Florida.
Bauring said that MobileNow won the bid based on cost and the technical abilities of the company, but stressed that the program will not cost the county except for “ a small amount of money into transitioning costs.”
Instead, each parking session will add a 31 cent fee to whatever time is used on the meter. The system requires signing up for a PayNow account, which can be done via cell, and a credit card to make the charges. Meter time can be increased without going back to the parking spot, up to the maximum time allowed. In addition, if parkers get back to the spot before their time as expired, they can cancel the session and not pay for the extra time on the meter.
Meters can be used as normal, and prices have not changed as a result of the pay-by-cell availability.
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