Finding Parking in Downtown St. Charles is Easy with New Mobile App

With major events coming up like RiverFest July 4-5 and Festival of the Little Hills Aug. 16-18, St. Charles gets swarmed by visitors, making it tough to find parking. A new free app, Park STC, shows exactly where to find available spots in downtown St. Charles using smart parking technology. The app is available for Android and iOS devices.

"We took this on as a joint project with the City of St. Charles to help solve a problem for visitors and employees of businesses in the area," says Amanda Brauer, Managing Director of the St. Charles County Roads & Traffic Office. "The Main Street area is vital to the county's tourism and economy-we hope this helps people who could spend a long time hunting for a parking spot, or turn away altogether."

The app covers 30 blocks of downtown St. Charles, showing the status of approximately 1,500 parking spaces in real-time. Sensors installed in the ground detect if a space is available or occupied, shown on the app as green if it's a free space, or red if it's taken.

"On street parking along Main is more of an estimate, since actual spaces are not marked," says Matt Seggerman, Project Manager for Roads & Traffic. "But you can get a fairly good read on if a green area is large enough for your specific vehicle, or at least be able to tell if it's in a convenient area for you."

The app does not require a user account (choose "Continue as Guest" when prompted on the home screen), and does not collect personal information if the user does not create an account, Seggerman says.

"This is a tool used for other communities that have a variety of needs," Seggerman says. "For those uses, extra information is needed, but for Park STC here in St. Charles, there's no need to make an account."

Smart parking is the latest implementation of the County's Smart Infrastructure plan, using technology to enhance traffic and road safety projects in all parts of the county. In recent years, the Gateway Green Light program synchronized the timing of all traffic signals throughout the county to improve traffic flow. The Emergency Vehicle Preemption project coordinates traffic signals with first responder vehicles, prioritizing green lights for those vehicles and protecting the safety of others at those intersections.

"All these projects have a focus on preparing our infrastructure for growth," Brauer says. "We have other projects that are in progress or awaiting the right funding that we hope will enhance safety and efficiency throughout the county."

The smart parking project cost about $800,000, with 80% of the funding from East-West Gateway Council of Governments, and the remaining portion split between the City of St. Charles and St. Charles County. This covers the implementation of the project, plus three years of data service.

The outlook for the project includes expanding into additional areas of St. Charles as well as other municipalities where parking issues may exist. Another long-term improvement on the horizon is installing dynamic signs to help direct the public to parking areas. These signs would be updated in real time based on the sensor data.

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