Parking this way! Photo credit: S Jones
These days, chances are you’ve heard of peer-to-peer car-sharing a concept that continues to grow in Contra Costa and allows people to borrow an available car from neighbors on an as-need basis. The Walnut Creek based firm, Park Circa has developed an app that facilitates shared parking.
A new tool, Park Circa, brings the peer-to-peer concept to parking and lets people use parking spaces when private citizens don’t need theirs.
Here’s how it works, in the words of Park Circa:
If you’re tired of losing 30 minutes of your life to the parking-space hunt every time you go out, this is the App for you. What if your friend who lives near a major transit hub said you could park in their driveway while they were at work as long as you were out by an agreed time?
Park Circa connects people who have empty parking spaces during a set time to people that need them. We enable coordination between neighbors and friends, so that your community resources are optimized for everyone’s benefit. We help organize and publish parking schedules and we facilitate payment between parties, so that people can find parking when they need it and where they need it. Drivers find a place to park, and space owners make some money on their empty driveways. Everyone wins.
The next time you find a convenient parking space near your work or home, check Park Circa, it could be available for you to potentially use! Some benefits of peer-to-peer parking may come intuitively, like the benefit of more efficient use of parking space, but for other benefits Park Circa offers:
- Take your space with you – convert your unused space into parking credit that you can redeem when and where you need it
- Make money– at $1-3 an hour and an average of four hours per day, you could make between $120 to 360 a month.
- Be a hero– help make life easier for your neighbors and fellow citizens, without any cost to yourself.
- Improve efficiency of urban resources through utilizing under utilized resources.
There are a handful of parking spaces in Contra Costa County:
Available parking spaces. Screen grab via: Park Circa
For additional coverage of the concept, check out a piece on Park Circa at SF Gate or head over to Park Circa’s website
