Good news for residents and visitors looking for cheap parking in Manhattan, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.: there’s a Web site that shows you the best parking deals by address, neighborhood, cross street, or neighborhood attraction. Bestparking.com compares daily and monthly rates for all the garages in the area, which you can view on a map and a list with the addresses of the lots.
The site’s parking partners, which are identified on the map and list, offer rate guarantees, reservations, coupons, and exclusive daily, weekly and monthly deals, according to Ben Sann, the founder of Bestparking.com. And, all of the pricing info is updated on a regular basis.
My brother told me about the site and now I use it at least once or twice a month in Manhattan—I used it last month when I went out in the Meatpacking District for a friend’s birthday—I walked an extra block and ended up saving $15.
And, I saved $36 this past weekend in the ultra-pricey theater district. Another garage just a block or so over from where we parked charged $65 to park for the same amount of time, and we paid $29.
At the site, you need to give accurate arrival and departure times—we had to leave by midnight on Saturday, or our rate would have gone up by $20. The site encourages users to search a few times using different departure and arrival times, since small differences can mean big savings.
Looking for parking on the go? Go to www.mobile.bestparking.com to access the parking site from your phone.
The best part of this site? It was inspired by a "Seinfeld" episode. Sann’s idea for the site came during the episode when George refuses to pay for parking. Sann, who was 16 at the time, rode his 3-speed Dahon fold-up bicycle throughout Manhattan and used a camera to record parking rates. Sann plans to expand the site’s parking coverage in a number of new cities this summer.
Have you used www.bestparking.com? Do you have any other sites that you use to save money when you park? Let me know—I’d love to hear your recommendations!
Caroline - Philadelphia Tourism
11:10:05 AM on Fri Jun 5 2009
Thanks for this - it should be helpful for both visitors and residents alike! Here in Philadelphia we tried to make parking even easier - we have parking tips at www.gophila.com/parking.