City of Colorado Springs launches parking finder tool
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The City of Colorado Springs has launched a new online parking finder tool.
City officials partnered with the mobility company Modii to create this free site.
The city says the tool is designed to help residents, commuters, and visitors locate various forms of available parking in Downtown Colorado Springs and Old Colorado City.
The new tool can be found at ColoradoSprings.gov/ParkingFinder.
According to the city, the tool leverages real-time data to allow users to locate free parking, paid parking (including rates), handicapped-meter parking, and other forms of parking.
“The new Parking Finder tool directly addresses the challenges users can face in locating available parking,” said Scott Lee, the City’s Parking Enterprise Director. “The convenience of this tool puts parking availability in an easy-to-use format for all our users, no matter their parking needs.”
The interactive mobile tool uses GPS to list parking options by you, or near your inputted chosen location. It provides rates, parking spot quantity, type of parking, and then navigates you with how to get there. It also shows where parking is not allowed, where EV charging stations are. As well as Pike Ride Hub locations and ZEB shuttles. It also lists special event parking fees.
For example, if someone is looking for parking on Tejon by Coati downtown, it'll list parking that's free or paid with the cost per hour, how many spots there are, and if it's metered, slanted, parallel, or what type of parking it is.
The goal is to bring more people into the downtown and Old Colorado City areas and help local businesses. As well as alleviate some of the headache that comes with parking in the downtown area.
"This website covers everything from Cache La Poudre all the way down to Fountain, and then from Interstate 25 to Wahsatch," Colorado Springs Parking Enterprise Director Scott Lee said. "Because that's the metered core area downtown. Plus Old Colorado City it goes from 21st to 28th Street between Cucharras and Pikes Peak. So it currently identifies all the public parking available and we're adding in private as those vendors tell us their information."
It can also help save people money by locating cheaper parking in the area some may not be aware of.
"We want people to come downtown and say hey I had a great meal, drink with friends, or got to do some shopping," Lee said. "I don't want to hear that they couldn't find parking or that it cost too much. So this will help people find a nearby location to park, and then a way to traverse across the city. Either the shuttle, walking, or pike ride, to get to their final destination."
City officials can gather data through the tool to help them plan future infrastructure.
This is part of a greater Smart COS plan to integrate smart technology throughout the city.
In the future, they're working on making this site live. They're currently gathering information, working on syncing their meter systems to a centralized location, and partnering with different companies and organizations so it can tell users how many spots are available in a particular location in real time.
"Right now it's a static baseline information," Lee said. "But as we get our sensor program for our street meters and our garage equipment can interface with that, we can say hey we have 1000 parking spots but 500 available as events occur and we're able to provide the real time data. But generally right now it'll help you find the direction you want to go to park. You see there's a big surface lot nearby, or there's not and you wanna save a little money and park in a garage, you'll see where the nearest one is to your destination."
