Can’t wait for Christmas? Bellingham has a present waiting for you downtown

If you haven’t tried out Bellingham’s PayByPhone app to pay for downtown parking, now would be the time to do so. Consider it an early Christmas gift from the elves at the city’s Public Works department.

Beginning Monday and running through Dec. 24, first-time users of the city’s PayByPhone app will be able to park for free — and you won’t even return to find a lump of coal on your windshield.

To receive free parking, drivers who do not have the PayByPhone app must download it, register an account and enter their payment and license plate information, according to a release on the promotion.

The city introduced the app for smart phones two years ago as an option for those visiting the downtown area to play for and manage parking without a pocketful of change, the release said. The service, which was updated last year to recognize license plates rather than parking stall numbers, even sends users a reminder when time is about to expire on their meters and provides options to add more time.

According to the release, an average of 17,000 transactions are completed every month in downtown Bellingham using the pay-by-phone app.

And it’s having an impact on the number of citations issued for overtime parking.

Between 2014 and 2016, an average of 17,946 overtime parking tickets were issued per year, Assistant Public Works Director-Operations Eric Johnston told The Bellingham Herald in an email Friday.

After the app was introduced in January 2017, citations were down 42.4 percent, as only 10,336 were issued for parking too long in 2017.

For more information on the app, parking services and enforcement, visit the city’s parking information web page or the Downtown Bellingham Partnership parking page.

This story was originally published December 10, 2018 at 5:00 AM.