Parking Panda

Parking Panda Aims to Curb City’s Parking Woes

Robert Gibson

After hearing of the City’s decision to begin charging for parking on Sundays, the question on the minds of many San Franciscans was a familiar one: “Where the hell am I going to park my car?”

A new company called Parking Panda offers one solution to this perennial problem. Having expanded to San Francisco in September of last year, the Baltimore-based startup aims to make life easier by offering a platform where those looking for parking and those looking to sell it can find each other. The website and its corresponding iPhone app were conceived when one of the founders, a Georgetown student, lived in an apartment with one parking space, when he owned exactly zero cars. Wouldn’t it be easier, he thought, if people could reserve parking ahead of time, rather than endlessly circling the block looking for an open spot? Wouldn’t it be nice, in a city where parking is at a premium, to make a little extra cash selling one’s extra space?

With Parking Panda, such common sense solutions are possible. Drivers can search for daily or monthly parking in commercial garages or private spaces, pay for it online or on their phones, then simply show up and be on their way. Anyone with an empty driveway or garage can list a space and its availability on the site. If it is booked, the owner will get a notification from the company, including the license plate number of the guest vehicle. A check with payment will come straight from Parking Panda, so the extra cash comes without the need to pressure a stranger to pony-up.

With parking in the city getting harder and harder to come by, peer-to-peer consumption like this may soon be the only way to find parking in San Francisco.

More information on Parking Panda can be found here.