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App Helps Drivers Find Downtown Parking For No More Than $15 Per Day

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A local tech firm that seeks to take some of the pain out of parking has worked out deals with more than 100 garages in the city, where you can park all day for $15.

ParkWhiz founder and CEO Aashish Dalal said parking rates are all over the map in Chicago.

"It's crazy. There's over 130, at a minimum; conservatively, 130 different rate structures," he said.

A poll of ParkWhiz customers found 81 percent would spend more time downtown if parking were not so expensive.

"They don't even want to come downtown to go to an event, because of the parking situation," he said. "We know that parking is one of the most hated things from consumers, and what we really are trying to do is, our main goal is we really want to make parking in Chicago affordable and convenient, and big part of that is we want to take the guess work out of pricing."

On Tuesday, ParkWhiz rolled out what it calls Simple Price Parking.

"We are basically offering consumers the ability to park for one hour for $5, two hours for $10, and all-day parking for no more than $15, at 100-plus of our Park Whiz partner facilities across the city," Dalal said. "I think ParkWhiz is solving a big problem to create more opportunities for consumers to spend time in the downtown area."

The ParkWhiz app is available on Apple and Android devices.

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