Pango Parking App: Is 90 Minutes Enough Time to Do What You Want to do in the Village?

What do you think about the new Pango app that allows parkers to pay for parking on your phone? I was eager to try it, and found it to be convenient. I didn’t mind the “convenience fee” that adds 16 cents per hour to the charge. However, one aspect of the new app bothered me. If you use it, the maximum time you can park is 90 minutes – and you cannot extend the time by feeding the meter. Furthermore after the 90 minutes you have to move your car more than 300 feet to avoid getting a parking ticket.

I was frustrated because the 90-minute limit sometimes did not permit enough time for me to do what I want to do in the Village – and consequently I found myself leaving the Village to shop in other locations.

I wrote to Assistant Village Manager Ingrid Richards and here is what I learned:

Dear Ingrid: I attend an exercise class in the Village with a group of friends. Following the class we like to go out to breakfast in the Village and do a few errands.

However, the new PANGO app limits parking to 1.5 hours - and cannot be extended.

Furthermore, if I understand the police correctly, I cannot move the car to another space in the Village that is less than 300 feet away without getting a ticket.
The result is that even though it’s early in the morning when we go - and there are many empty parking spots, we have to rush our breakfast and leave the Village without shopping at the stores.

Today I had to go to the drugstore in Hartsdale because I couldn’t stay in the Village any longer. This seems to be counterproductive for Village merchants.

Any ideas? Am I the first person that’s reporting this?

Thanks,
Joanne Wallenstein

From Assistant Village Manager Ingrid Richards

The Village parking enforcement officers and police officers will ticket a motorist for overtime parking (meter feeding) if the motorist parks beyond the maximum time limit posted. The Pango app complies with the current Village Code. In order to manage parking in the Village Center and ensuring adequate turnover of the parking spaces during the day- maximum time limits are placed on parking spaces.

The officer is correct, that the only way for a motorist to avoid a ticket is by moving his/her vehicle to a parking spot that is at a minimum 300 feet away from the original space. The Village Center does provide longer-term parking, the locations are as follows: Christie Place Garage (4 hours); East Parkway near the police substation (8 hours) and Woodland Place (2 hours). The eight hour East Parkway parking spaces were recently created to provide a parking option for owners/employees of the businesses and customers who want to park beyond the typical 90 minute time limit.

If you need any additional information, please let me know.

Ingrid M. Richards
Assistant Village Manager
Village of Scarsdale
1001 Post Road
Scarsdale, New York 10583