Speed parking - Columbia offers ways to make paying for parking more convenient

Refeeding meters? Who has time for that?

And the quarters – oh, the quarters!

Parking is hard, you know? But Columbia has introduced some ways to make it a little easier on you.

The city hopes these efforts make the parking experience easier for customers.

They might even cost the city some revenue, city parking director John Spade said, since they could help more people avoid tickets and late fees.

Smartphones: Passport

Introduced a week ago, this smartphone app allows you to feed a meter without actually feeding a meter.

When you download the PassportParking app and create an account and PIN, you can register your car’s license plate number – or, multiple plates, for your family – and credit or debit card information.

Then, when you park at almost any of the city’s more than 4,300 parking meters, open the app and enter what’s called the “zone number,” which is found on each meter. Then use the app to add the desired amount of time to your meter, up to the maximum time allowed for that space – 30 minutes, two hours or five hours.

You can program the settings on your app to have it send you a reminder when the time on your meter is about to expire.

A caveat: You’ll pay a little extra for a convenience fee charged by the app.

SmartCards

Treat these cards like a debit card for parking, essentially.

You can purchase them at the parking services office at 820 Washington St. – near the garage at Lincoln and Lady streets – and load them in amounts of $20, $50, $75 and $100. The card itself costs $5, and you can reload money onto cards at the pay-by-space machines in the Cannon garage on Taylor Street, between Main and Sumter streets.

Instead of putting change into a meter when you park, insert your SmartCard into a slot on the meter and load time in 20-minute increments.

Bonus: SmartCard users get 6 percent bonus time on their meters. So, if you pay for 50 minutes, you get an extra three minutes free.

Online citation payments

OK, you already owe $8 for forgetting to refeed the meter. Don’t cost yourself any more by dealing with late fees or stamps on an envelope.

Just pay your parking tickets online by going to www.columbiasc.net/parking and clicking the link at the top of the page. Like Passport Parking, this online payment service, introduced in April, also charges an extra fee for using it.

Payments also can be made by mailing checks to P.O. Box 712, Columbia, SC 29202; in person, at 1136 Washington St. or 820 Washington St.; or by phone, by calling (803) 545-4015.

This story was originally published August 8, 2015 at 8:54 PM with the headline "Speed parking - Columbia offers ways to make paying for parking more convenient."