Extended parking meter hours begin Monday in Phoenix

You’ll have to drop coins into downtown Phoenix parking meters later starting Monday.

“We changed (our meter hours) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday to 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, including weekends and holidays,” said City of Phoenix spokesman Mathew Heil.

Heil says you’ll still pay $1.50 per hour, but that may soon change. Demand-based pricing of up to $4 an hour could start sometime in November, he said.

“That’s going to be based in large part on how we see this extension of hours goes,” said Heil. “The key point for us is that we want people to be parking at the meters, and using the meters. If we see a change in behavior, we’re going to try to adapt to that as well.”

Meanwhile, the city is working to upgrade 1,500 meters to accept credit cards. When the upgrades are completed, roughly 80 percent of the meters will be able to accept both credit cards and coins.