The 2007 Colliers’ 7th annual North America Parking Rate Survey indicates the cost to park your car continues to increase. The average monthly parking spot in the US is now $150.81, up 4.4% from last year according to Colliers’, while daily rates jumped up to $15.38, up 3.2%.

The pinch is being felt in places like Chicago, where over 200,000 people drive downtown to their job everyday. New York City receives the honor once again with the highest rates in the US, coming in at $630 on average to park your car in Midtown. At least NY residents can be thankful the situation isn’t as dire as our friends in London have it, where they pay a whopping $1198 a month for parking! Wow!

So the question is, are you getting the best parking deal in town? Enter your destination and find out!

As announced at last night’s NY Tech Meetup, ParkWhiz is now available on your cell phone, smart phone, or BlackBerry. Just open up your phone’s browser and point it at parkwhiz.com. You can do a basic search for parking and see details for indivual spots. We’ll be rolling out additional mobile functionality over the next couple months.

We’ve tested in on Opera Mobile and the Blackberry browser. If ParkWhiz doesn’t work with you phone’s browser, tell me and I’ll fix it!

Presenting at last month’s Web 2.0 Meetup was a blast. The crowd had some great comments and ideas — everyone seemed to think ParkWhiz is a great solution for the proposed congestion tolls in NYC — and I met a lot of really cool people. Check out AudioSnacks, another startup with roots in NYC and Chicago. Big thanks to Brett Petersel for organizing everything.

If you missed the Web 2.0 meetup, I’ll be giving 2 more demos/presentations next week. Come to the NY Tech Meetup on July 10 at 7pm (Great Hall @ Cooper Union, 7 E 7th St) to see a tech-oriented demo of ParkWhiz. RSVP soon, because the event is almost full.

I’ll also be presenting at The Hatchery’s Gauntlet event on July 11th at 6:30pm. This event is full, but you can sign up for the wait list at meetup.com. The Gauntlet will be held at the offices of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge on the 8th floor of 750 Lexington Ave.