Parking meters fail across New York City due to 2020 software issue

NEW YORK - Move over Y2K, New York City is dealing with Y2-20.

The New York City Department of Transportation announced that it had fixed 1,750 of the city’s approximate 14,000 meters after a glitch prevented drivers from paying for metered parking with credit cards. 

The New York City Department of Transportation blames the outage on a configuration error in the credit-card payment software used by a vendor.  It says the software in meters used in New York City had established an end date of January 1, 2020 – and had never been updated.

The DoT says that it will employ extra electricians to work around the clock to fix the issue with a focus o areas where credit cards account for the majority of transactions. 

The city said that the meters are still accepting coins and the ParkNYC app was still working.

As for tickets for people who didn't have coins, the city issued  a terse statement saying simply, "We are discussing with the Department of Finance."

The DoT expects to have the meters fixed by January 9.