App Glitch Gives Free Parking at Reston Town Center — But Only Temporarily

Free parking returned to Reston Town Center for a fleeting moment Wednesday afternoon.

Social media users reported earlier today that the ParkRTC app at Reston Town Center was not charging, but Boston Properties says the situation has been handled and everything is back to normal.

The app read “There is free parking at the Reston Town Center until further notice” when users attempted to begin their parking session. Angie Goff, news anchor for NBC Washington, first alerted us to the situation in a tweet she sent to her more than 54,000 followers at about 1:20 p.m.

Interesting… just tried to pay my meter and got this? 🤔 #RTC pic.twitter.com/Fas6uD7AfH

— angie goff (@OhMyGOFF) May 24, 2017

PassionFish (11960 Democracy Drive) later tweeted a notice to alert potential customers to the situation.

Parking is always FREE for our guests in #Reston but today the parking app OFF -no validation is needed! Stop in for #HappyHour at 3. pic.twitter.com/h42nHFbcbT

— PassionFish Reston (@PassionFishRest) May 24, 2017

Kathy Walsh, spokesperson on behalf of Boston Properties, told Reston Now just before 2 p.m., though, that the “technical issues” had been fixed.

“Apparently there were some technical issues with the parking system this afternoon that have since been resolved and normal parking rates are in effect,” Walsh said. “Parking actually was free while that message was displaying.”