The centralized pay stations replaced coin-operated meters in several downtown lots last summer, and could displace all remaining meters in a few months, the Press reports. (Click to enlarge)

Tuesday’s Asbury Park Press has some news about Red Bank’s new pay-for-parking system:

• that users can now get text alerts when their allotted time is about to run out

• and that borough officials plan to replace all the old coin-operated meters with the new technology by summer.

Well, at least one of those two is news. Though the article quotes Mayor Pasquale Menna as saying the text alerts went live “a couple of weeks ago,” the text option has been operational since the stations were installed last June. redbankgreen has been using the option since last August, as the dates on the screen grab at right show.

Now, encouraged by a reduction in the number of $38 overtime parking summonses issued, and compelled by a scarcity of replacement parts for coin-operated meters, town officials “plan to replace the remaining conventional parking meters on downtown streets with pay stations before summer starts,” the Press reports:

A proposal to install pay stations on downtown streets now served by meters will be made in the next couple of weeks, Menna said.

“We’d like to get them in before summer,” he said.

The pay stations were installed last June in municipal lots on White Street, English Plaza, north Maple Avenue (Maple Cove) and Marine Park, and for street parking on Union Street and Wharf Avenue.

An expansion of the program would include the East Side lots as well as all remaining street meters downtown, along Monmouth Street and on Bridge Avenue, officials have said in the past.