City Garage Waives Fee Due to Verizon Outage

By Amber Lester Kennedy Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Parking at the Prince George Street Garage in Williamsburg is temporarily free.

An outage on the Verizon DSL line that connects the city’s data center with the parking garage disrupted the city’s ability to process credit card charges and other transactions. Until the system can be repaired, the parking garage is open for vehicles, free of charge. In a press release, the city encouraged people to seize the opportunity to shop and dine downtown without paying to park.

The repair is delayed by a strike of 45,000 Verizon Communications workers that began Sunday. Unions for phone repair technicians, customer service representatives and cable installers did not agree to a contract with the company. As a result, Verizon is estimating the DSL outage in Williamsburg might not be resolved until Thursday.

The city will provide updates as they become available.