Dewey Beach moving away from coined parking meters

DEWEY BEACH, Del. – The popular resort town is likely to make changes for visitors and locals for parking. Dewey Beach officials are looking to move forward with the online parking method.

Municipalities nearby, such as Rehoboth, have already fully adopted online payments.

Fenwick Island is doing away with coin-operated parking meters, similar to Dewey Beach.

Conversely, Lewes, Delaware, plans to maintain parking meters for now.

According to Dewey Beach Town Manager Bill Zolper, the beach still uses meters.

“Dewey Beach had about 150 coined meters spread out throughout the town. Since then, we’ve gone down to about 38 left for businesses that have a lot of turnover. Those include some novelty shops, and several restaurants around town.”

Zolper tells WMDT, those 38 parking meters are essential. He mentioned employees use those spaces, leaving customers searching for parking.

Zolper adds that parking technology is the future and will be beneficial for the long-term success of the popular summer destination.

“ParkMobile, and T2 are the wave of the future. There is less maintenance because all these meters, we have to do maintenance on them every winter when you take them down, to ensure they work properly, not only that we have to empty them every couple of days.”

WMDT spoke with some tourists in Dewey Beach, and they actually preferred the old school meters.

Stay with us for updates on beach parking.