New parking app launches in New York

June 22, 2015 For Brooklyn Daily Eagle

SpotPog — a new app that allows drivers to find free and paid spots — launched in Brooklyn on Monday with the support of elected officials and local organizations. Image courtesy of SpotPog

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SpotPog — a new app that allows drivers to find free and paid spots — launched in Brooklyn on Monday with the support of elected officials and local organizations. Leaders praised SpotPog as a smart way to address the city’s parking problem, and to help improve the environment and street safety in high-traffic neighborhoods.

SpotPog reached out to three Brooklyn neighborhoods to start: Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Fort Greene. Drivers in those neighborhoods will be the first to be able to use the app this week before the SpotPog community grows beyond Brooklyn to the rest of the city.

“Brooklyn has a serious parking problem,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. “We need an innovative approach to help residents find spots in their own neighborhoods, or when running errands and attending local events. SpotPog has the potential to meet this mission, employing our smartphones in a smart way to help reduce traffic congestion, decrease street-level pollution, and allow for more drivers to visit our local business districts.”

“Circling for parking causes tons of preventable street-level pollution a year, creating health risks in our neighborhoods,” New York City Council Environmental Chair Donovan Richards added. “SpotPog will help alleviate New York’s parking-related problems with a free, innovative app designed to drive our communities into a healthier, safer future.”

SpotPog users are able to swap public street spots for free, enabling those who have downloaded the app to save time by not hunting for spots. Drivers earn credits (“Pogs”) every time they give away a free spot to another user, and those credits can then be used to claim a free space later on.

SpotPog users who own driveways will also be able to post their driveways for rent on the app. Driveway owners can set their own hourly prices and availability, creating a new parking option for the millions of city drivers who have trouble finding a space. SpotPog’s technology allows driveway owners to complete transactions without even being home.

Proceeds from driveway rentals can also be directed to local non-profits through the app. In addition, for a limited time SpotPog is making donations to charities that benefit New York when free spots are created. For the next few weeks, City Harvest — the city’s leading anti-hunger organization — will receive $5 for every public spot created by a user who applies the CITYHARVEST code.

SpotPog is also seeking to help local businesses, which suffer from a lack of parking. Storefronts on busy streets lose customers who can’t find open spots.

“Thanks to SpotPog, Brooklynites and visitors alike will no longer have to suffer through searching for spots, and consumers will be able to patronize our vibrant commercial corridors without fretting over where they’ll park,” said Carlo A. Scissura, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

SpotPog is available for use on phones with both Apple and Android operating systems. More info on SpotPog, how it works, and its community partners can be found at www.SpotPog.com.