Blog: State Street Garage Blog

Use Free App to Check Garage Parking Availability

You're heading downtown for a Vol football game. Or a concert at the Tennessee Theatre. Or First Friday happenings. You know there's going to be a big crowd. Where should you park?

There's now a new digital tool available that can help you strategically pick your parking garage destination, before you even start your car and pull out of the driveway.

Parkopedia.com offers a free phone app that reports data from sensors at the entrances to City-owned downtown garages. So you can see, in real-time, how many parking spaces are available at each garage. If State Street Garage or Market Square Garage is full, you'll know to head to the Locust Street Garage, or the City County Building Garage - or park at the Civic Coliseum and ride the free KAT trolley to downtown and Old City destinations.

You can download the app onto your phone, or get the information off a desktop computer.

Here's how it works:

Visit Parkopedia.com or download the

Parkopedia app. Enter "Knoxville" where prompted to enter a city or place.

Parkopedia app provides real-time information on available parking in every City-owned downtown garage.

Parkopedia app provides real-time information on available parking in every City-owned downtown garage.

Next, the screen will display parking options and prices for one-hour parking.

Parkopedia app provides real-time information on available parking in every City-owned downtown garage.

Click on the price box for the garage you want or go to the top of the page and click on "list" (rather than "map"). If you click on "list," you'll get a list of parking lot and garage options. Click on any City-owned garage in which you'd prefer to park.

Parkopedia app provides real-time information on available parking in every City-owned downtown garage.

Say you want to park in State Street Garage - click on that listing. A new screen will provide you details about the garage - the $1-an-hour rate (free on nights and weekends), that it has electric car charging stations and ADA parking, the garage's maximum capacity.

The key information you're looking for is: Can I park there now?

Scroll down, and you can find exactly how many empty parking spaces are in the garage in real time.

Parkopedia app provides real-time information on available parking in every City-owned downtown garage.

In this example, there were 75 parking spaces available in State Street Garage as of 12:03 p.m., a matter of seconds after you started planning your parking destination.

But what if the garage has filled up while you're driving toward it? How can you avoid pulling into a garage and circling for a half hour in vain, only to find there are no available spaces?

Your last-ditch safeguard is to look at the digital display at the entrance of every City-owned garage. Those displays will tell you - just like the Parkopedia app - how many spaces are currently available. If the display reads "FULL," you better not pull in.

Digital displays tell motorists how many parking spaces are available as they enter a City-owned garage.

Digital displays tell motorists how many parking spaces are available as they enter a City-owned garage.

Posted by evreeland On 09 November, 2018 at 10:22 AM