As We See It

Trying out the city of Las Vegas’ new parking app

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Editor's note: The Mob Museum now charges $5 for three hours and the Downtown Transportation Center Lot now has parking meters.

Okay, seriously, say “Matlock Lot” five times fast. Possible? Probably not. But what is possible, thanks to a new City of Las Vegas app, is finding lot parking, and parking prices, Downtown. The 61-space Matlock Lot sits on the southeast corner of Fourth and Clark and costs $1 per hour. Blocks away at the Mob Museum, 42 spaces await for $5 per hour. But—doh!—the Old Downtown Transportation Center Lot, just steps away, accommodates 125 cars for … free.

The city’s app is useful for discovering Downtown’s 10-lot parking landscape, but thereafter a permanent switch to ParkMe makes sense. (Don’t feel bad, city app, your food truck map will be worth revisiting once it’s up!) The well-designed ParkMe shows color-coded prices ranging from free to $20 Downtown, along with the capacity of nearby lots. (As I write this, Gold Spike is 23 percent full. Wait—it just dropped to 19.)

To pay for those lot spaces, however, users must switch to Parkmobile (or just feed the on-site kiosk, but where’s the fun in that?). Unlike ParkMe, Parkmobile shows metered street parking, but also unlike ParkMe, Parkmobile doesn’t indicate the price per hour until you’ve entered a space number and desired time limit and are ready to check out.

Each of the apps has pros and cons, but whatever combination you use, it’s nice to have options. That’s something I can say five times fast.

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