LA Express Park; Intelligent Parking Management

LA Express Park is an intelligent parking management system that fuses technology and demand-based pricing to optimize the parking experience. When LADOT (Los Angeles Department of Transportation) approached the Westwood Village Improvement Association with the opportunity to implement the LA Express Park in Westwood Village, the WVIA Board of Directors voted to approve a pilot program for Express Park. The new system will go into effect in the fall of this year.

What is LA Express park and how will it really help parking in Westwood Village? The goals of the LA Express Park program are to increase the availability of parking and reduce traffic congestion. This program is an opportunity to improve parking management in Westwood Village and hopefully eliminate the days of lugging around fistfuls of quarters to feed hungry parking meters, and reduce circling the block repeatedly in search of a parking space. The new Express Park parking meters will also create a greater turnover of our parking inventory since sensors in the meters will eliminate the perpetual meter-feeding that can tie up a parking space for an entire day with the same vehicle.

The “smart meters" installed in the Village will compile parking data and send this information to LADOT. Parking information from our Broxton Public Parking Structure will also be included in the transmission and be accessible by the public in real time, so visitors can learn in advance where parking is available. This information will be available through smartphone applications. Demand-based parking meter rates adjust throughout the day from $0.50 to a max of $2.00 an hour, depending on availability, time and day of the week. When demand is high, parking rates will go up, and when demand drops off, rates will lower. The smart phone app has features like, pay-by-phone, ability to extend the time limit (if under the max time), and text alerts when meters are expiring.

For more information on the LA Express Park pilot program, please visit www.laexpresspark.org.