CLEVELAND — The city of Cleveland announced Wednesday that it had begun to add its new mobile parking meter service to the Ohio City neighborhood.
Ohio City is the second neighborhood in Cleveland where drivers can pay to park using the ParkMobile app or website after the technology was installed downtown last fall.
Instead of coin-operated parking meters, the Ohio City streets will be lined with green and black ParkMobile signs with unique Parking Zone Numbers for each area of the neighborhood. Users can then download the ParkMobile app from the Apple App store or Google Play store. To pay to park, users create an account, enter the zone number and select the amount of time, then add the information and license plate number for their vehicle.
Alternatively, users can park without downloading the app by scanning the QR code on the sign or visiting the website at parkmobile.io, or by texting "Park" to 77223. Drivers who don't have smartphones can call 877-727-5009 to pay by phone.
The city will be rolling out ParkMobile in Ohio City in three phases over the next four weeks. Phase 1 will be for "main commercial" areas on West 25th Street and Lorain Avenue where parking meters are already in place. Phase 2 will cover portions of those two streets and nearby offshoots where time-limited parking sessions already exist. Phase 3 includes mixed-use zones like Detroit Avenue, Fulton Road, Church Avenue, Bridge Avenue and West 28th Street where there are currently no parking meters.
Parking enforcement will be paused during a two-to-three week "grace period" as the new technology is installed throughout the neighborhood.
The city said Ohio City was identified as the next neighborhood for the ParkMobile rollout because it already had coin-operated meters and because increased business growth had strained street parking demand.
Last week, some residents and business owners in Ohio City were alarmed to find that ParkMobile signage indicating payment would be required had already been installed in some areas of the neighborhood. The city said Wednesday that those signs "were mistakenly installed at the wrong time in some areas of Ohio City last week and the City apologizes for the confusion."