Transportation Woes - Part 1
People from Chicago tend to be fairly impatient concerning their preferred mode of transportation. Nothing is worse than walking down the subway steps at Monroe and State at 5:07 PM on a Friday afternoon only to see a line of 7 tourists decked out from head to toe in Cubby Blue.. who don’t speak the language. I don’t mean they’re from another country or have trouble with English. What I mean is that they don’t speak “CTA”.
It’s amazing the number of ways they can attempt to stick the farecard in the machine while still doing it wrong. Then when they finally manage through the turnstile, they just stand there on the other side. I want to say to them, “the red line is really simple, you either go north or south, and both trains are down that stairwell you are currently blocking me from.”
I rarely ride the Metra, but my co-workers who do have told me they have similar experiences especially during tourist-rich Chicago summers. One co-worker has explained to me that, rather than an out-of-town Cub fan, the nemesis of a seasoned Metra rider is a North Shore retiree who came to the city for a late afternoon performance at Orchestra Hall.
Already, walking traffic to Union Station in the evening bottle necks right after Wacker Drive when pedestrians and cars have to cross the bridge over the Chicago river. You can imagine the frustration when that bottle neck doesn’t just slow to its regular pace, but instead to that of an 83 year-old woman, leaning on the steady arm of her 91 year-old husband.
Even more frustrating are when tourists in the prime of life, who are quite capable of walking at a normal speed, STOP on the bridge to look at their City of Chicago map. Somehow, amidst the chaos of horns, traffic, and profanity being yelled in their direction, they miss the 4800 people trying to pass them to make the 5:18 train to Kenosha.
I recently developed a slight understanding for those tourists and I felt like one for a few moments. Even though, after about ten years of commuting to school and then work, I’m pretty much an expert “L” rider, this city has many forms of transportation. “Taking the train” can mean at least three forms of ACTUAL transport and is possibly a drug reference as well. One needs to be a lot more specific.
I would say that I am:
-1600 on my SAT’s- level “L”
-“bus” literate and....
-conversational, if not fluent “Metra”
Last week however, I took my very first ride on the Amtrak. I was for sure, not in Kansas, or on the L, anymore.
To be continued….
It’s amazing the number of ways they can attempt to stick the farecard in the machine while still doing it wrong. Then when they finally manage through the turnstile, they just stand there on the other side. I want to say to them, “the red line is really simple, you either go north or south, and both trains are down that stairwell you are currently blocking me from.”
I rarely ride the Metra, but my co-workers who do have told me they have similar experiences especially during tourist-rich Chicago summers. One co-worker has explained to me that, rather than an out-of-town Cub fan, the nemesis of a seasoned Metra rider is a North Shore retiree who came to the city for a late afternoon performance at Orchestra Hall.
Already, walking traffic to Union Station in the evening bottle necks right after Wacker Drive when pedestrians and cars have to cross the bridge over the Chicago river. You can imagine the frustration when that bottle neck doesn’t just slow to its regular pace, but instead to that of an 83 year-old woman, leaning on the steady arm of her 91 year-old husband.
Even more frustrating are when tourists in the prime of life, who are quite capable of walking at a normal speed, STOP on the bridge to look at their City of Chicago map. Somehow, amidst the chaos of horns, traffic, and profanity being yelled in their direction, they miss the 4800 people trying to pass them to make the 5:18 train to Kenosha.
I recently developed a slight understanding for those tourists and I felt like one for a few moments. Even though, after about ten years of commuting to school and then work, I’m pretty much an expert “L” rider, this city has many forms of transportation. “Taking the train” can mean at least three forms of ACTUAL transport and is possibly a drug reference as well. One needs to be a lot more specific.
I would say that I am:
-1600 on my SAT’s- level “L”
-“bus” literate and....
-conversational, if not fluent “Metra”
Last week however, I took my very first ride on the Amtrak. I was for sure, not in Kansas, or on the L, anymore.
To be continued….
Comments
I still think I prefer it to the winter when getting to work is like taking a slip-and-slide on the un-iced sidewalks half of the time.
And beth.. good call about Ravinia.. I completely forgot about that. Ugh.