Hours for parking meters extended

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - For anyone who parks on metered roads in Indianapolis, an announcement from the city's parking authority Thursday will be welcomed news.

Natalie Snyder knows the feeling.

"You're in the middle of dinner and it's going longer than you thought or you want to go shop around and you totally forget and then you have to leave everyone to put money in."

It's the parking meter madness; expired time, scrounging through your pockets for quarters. It can leave you spent.

"Indianapolis is one of the leading cities in the United States in technology for parking," said ParkIndy representative, Lou Gerig.

Gerig says, no longer. After hearing customer complaints, the city has made some changes to that two hour parking limit.

"In some cases it will go to three hours, in some areas it will go to six hours, and in some areas it will go to ten hours depending on where it is and the time of day," said Gerig.

If you do need to extend your time, there's an app for that.

Just enter your car's license plate, credit card, and space number and the ParkMobile app is like a meter box at your fingertips.

Say you're in an important meeting on the 30th floor of a building when you realize your time is expired. Instead of coming all the way down to put money in the meter, you can just click a button and extend your hours.

"Then it says, 'confirmed.' This is my location, this is the car I have, this is the time, this is the cost, transaction fee is 25 cents and my total cost is 75. I'm going to start parking," said Gerig.

ParkMobile costs 25 cents per transaction. There's another great parking app, Parker . You pull up a map of Indy, look at the area you're headed to, and it shows you where there are available meters. No more driving around in circles. Both apps are free to download.