Constantly fighting for a parking spot in Washington, DC? Maybe Park It DC will give you an edge. The Google Maps application, built for the Apps For Democracy contest, pulls parking meter and crime metadata from open DC databases, enabling you to see in near real-time where you can find a parking spot and whether you’ll have to pay for it or not.
Looking at the map you’ll see a bunch of different colored icons. Red dots indicate a paid status, yellow dots indicate the parking meter will be free in 1 hour or less, green dots mean the meter is free, black dots indicate where a vehicle-related crime happened, meter icons indicate that you can zoom in on more meters, and a blue line indicates reserved parking. It’s only as accurate as the open information available on the web, but should you think you can make it better, the source code is freely available. In the future, Park It DC’s development team hopes to make the application available for mobile phones.
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