Metro News Release
For immediate release: June 10, 2010
Metro to introduce convenience of credit card payment
22 parking facilities to receive credit card readers by early 2011
Paying to park at Metrorail stations will soon get easier as Metro is looking to expand the option of allowing customers to pay for parking using a credit card.
The Metro Board Customer Service, Operations and Safety Committee today (June 10) endorsed the installation of a credit card payment option at 22 Metrorail parking facilities. The committee also endorsed retrofitting 55 SmarTrip card sales machines to extend their life expectancy. The Metro Board of Directors will vote on the proposal at its June 24 meeting.
If approved, the credit card payment option would be installed at the following Metrorail parking lots by early spring 2011: Branch Ave, Suitland, Naylor Road, Southern Ave, West Hyattsville, Prince George’s Plaza, College Park-U of Md, Greenbelt, Morgan Boulevard, Addison Road-Seat Pleasant, Van Dorn Street, Dunn Loring, West Falls Church-VT/UVA, East Falls Church, Cheverly, Landover, Rockville, White Flint, Twinbrook, Grosvenor-Strathmore, Forest Glen and Glenmont Metrorail stations.
Each parking facility will have at least one exit lane equipped with a credit card payment option. Customers will be able to use their Discover, Mastercard, Visa, American Express or Japanese Credit Bank cards at these locations in addition to paying with a SmarTrip card.
As part of a pilot program, approved by the Board of Directors in 2006, credit card readers were installed at seven parking facilities: Anacostia, Franconia-Springfield, Largo Town Center, Vienna/Fairfax-GMU, Shady Grove, New Carrollton and Huntington Metrorail stations.
Upon completion of the Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood Metrorail station joint development construction project, that station will have a new parking facility and at that time it will have the credit card option available. At the Deanwood, Minnesota Avenue, Fort Totten, Capitol Heights and Wheaton Metrorail stations, customers pay to park upon entering those facilities.
Metro adopted a cashless parking program in March 2004, which required customers to pay parking fees using a pre-loaded SmarTrip card.
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News release issued at 3:54 pm, June 10, 2010.