North Cook News

City of Evanston issued the following announcement on July 16.

As part of a continued effort to meet Evanston's diverse parking needs, the City of Evanston today announced much-anticipated improvements to parking services and payment options, including eliminating fees for wallet transactions on the popular Park Evanston mobile app and providing more flexible parking options for drivers throughout the city.

Beginning this week, Park Evanston mobile app users who pay for parking using the app's mobile wallet function will no longer be assessed the 35-cent transaction fee charged by the vendor. Park Evanston users can load funds onto their wallet in $20 increments using a credit card or with cash at the City Collector’s Office, located at the Morton Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave.

App users who choose not to use the wallet and instead pay for parking "as they go" will be assessed a 35-cent transaction fee, regardless of whether or not they purchase the maximum time allowed. As always, there is no transaction fee for parking payments made at parking meters or pay stations.

Since its launch in 2017, Park Evanston app users have completed more than 400,000 parking transactions. The convenient app allows users to pay for parking and extend sessions remotely, receive notifications when parking sessions are about to expire, track parking history, and more. Users can download the app via the App Store or Google Play, or by visiting parkevanston.org.

In addition to eliminating the convenience fee for wallet users, other changes to parking include:

• No convenience fee for online parking citation payments. Community members paying a parking citation online will no longer be assessed a $1 transaction fee.
• New multi-garage parking permit. Drivers can now purchase one monthly parking permit for $175 to access all three City-owned parking garages: 1800 Maple, Sherman Plaza and Church Street.
• Extended maximum evening parking times. The City has extended maximum evening parking times outside of the core downtown business district and in surrounding neighborhood business districts. Drivers can now pay to park for up to four hours or more on many streets after 5 p.m., instead of the previous two-hour maximum. In addition, some daytime two-hour parking zones have been extended to four hours or twelve hours.

Community members are reminded that longer term parking is available in the City's three downtown parking garages. Drivers can park for up to five hours for $5 or less. Parking for less than one hour is free.

For more information about parking in Evanston, please visit cityofevanston.org/parking or call/text 847-448-4311. For convenience, residents may simply dial 3-1-1 in Evanston.

Original source can be found here.

Source: City of Evanston