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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Spokane signs short-term deal for pay-by-phone parking downtown

FILE – City Planner Dave Steele holds up his cellphone to demonstrate how patrons can use their cellphones to pay for parking with Spokane’s new smart parking meters on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014, in downtown Spokane, Wash. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
By Kip Hill kiph@spokesman.com(509) 459-5429

Pay-by-phone parking will return to downtown Spokane this week, after the city signed a short-term deal with a North Carolina company to resume the service.

Meters on Main Avenue, between Lincoln and Wall streets, may be fed using the Passport parking app starting Tuesday, according to a news release from the city. Spokane’s meters stopped accepting phone payments at the end of February after a previous vendor, LocoMobi, failed to pay $80,000 the city says it was owed through the service.

Following a weeklong test period, the city expects to expand the Passport parking app functionality to other parts of town beginning next week, according to the news release.

Passport, founded in 2010 in Charlotte, North Carolina, has partnered with the cities of Detroit, Boston and Chicago to provide mobile parking services, according to the company’s website.

The city signed a one-year contract with Passport earlier this month worth $10,000. Pursuant to the contract, Passport receives 10 cents for every parking transaction.