San José has added a fourth option to pay for parking at on-street meters: text-to-pay. The city’s solar-powered “smart” parking meters, which already accepted coins, all major credit cards, and both Apple and Android smart phone tap payments, now advise parkers to text “Park” to 30844. Texting this number will access the Passport Parking website, where a few quick clicks can pay for their parking stay. People can also download the Passport Parking app to manage their parking stay, which also lets them feed the meter remotely to extend a parking session.

San José has approximately 2,500 parking meters, spread across Downtown, Japantown, Little Italy, Civic Center, and the Arena (where text-to-pay is still pending) zones. The smart meters have accepted contactless tap-to-pay since 2019 and credit cards for a decade. Visitors to Downtown also have access to seven public lots and garages, offering free parking for the first 90 minutes. Learn more about parking options at https://parksj.org/.