Map of the Day: Chicago Parking Map

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Mar 23, 2006 1:57PM

Ever drive around and around trying to find a place to park downtown? Believe it or not, there are 188 garages with about 25,000 parking spots, and now there's an online map so you can find them. chicagoparkingmap.com lets users enter an address or browse on the map to find city locations and the nearest parking garages to them. There's also an option to get directions from a location to a parking garage.

This seems all fine and dandy, but the thing is ... you have to remember to look it up on the computer before you hit the road. We guess you could do it on your internet-enabled car or portable device, but that seems kind of dangerous to do while driving ... and a pain to pull over and do.

If you click on a parking garage on the map information about the garage pops up. Like if there's an attendant or if it's a self-park garage, what the hours of operation are, where the entrances and exits are, and whether credit cards are accepted. We can see how this kind of information would be really valuable if you find yourselves driving around downtown a lot. Us? We'll stick to the CTA.