If you’ve ever had the experience of trying to park on the street in a Los Angeles neighborhood and not being able to make heads or tails of all the confusing, seemingly conflicting signs about when and where it is illegal to park, you might want to download a new app, Polis Assist, before you get back in the car. The developers behind it claim they have, once and for all, created an authoritative app for navigating every parking situation in the city.
The developers behind Polis Assist tell L.A. Weekly that what makes them different from any previous attempt at appifying parking info is their game-changing database. Instead of relying on questionable reports from users (who might be mistaken themselves or, as has happened with Waze, be intentionally trying to mislead users for their own reasons) the Polis Assist team built their back-end by investing in human staff time to go over the city block by block, reading the signs with their own eyes and coding it in. So far, they’ve covered Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Culver City and West Hollywood, with Pasadena, Marina del Rey and Burbank coming up soon.
In addition to telling you if that spot you’ve found really is or is not legit, they’ve also included a system that will let you search for alternative (and, especially, free) parking options nearby.
The app is free to use, but a premium subscription option is available for $1.99 per month. The subscription unlocks a tool that Polis Assist thinks will help you out if you do end up getting slapped with a ticket even when all the signs said it was safe. It allows for independent third-party logging of the exact place and time you parked, evidence that they suggest including in your ticket appeal.
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