After our recent visit to Marion, Indiana to celebrate Melissa's graduation, we set out across northern Indiana westward to Chicago. Getting ourselves to southwestern Chicago's Midway International Airport to return our rental car involved some challenging driving through heavy traffic...Melissa was behind the wheel at this time and did an admirable job pulling off a most difficult task. Once we were in the airport, though, the process almost effortlessly sped us forward as the Chicago Transit Authority, better known as C.T.A., had an onsite rail station for the Orange line, which quickly transported us to our hotel in the city's downtown "loop". The only difficulties we had were first figuring out how to get our C.T.A. passes from one of the station's vending machines...an employee graciously and patiently walked us through it all. And then, once that Orange train dropped us off a couple of blocks from our hotel, we had to work on orienting ourselves and finally set off in the right direction after a couple of false turns. The next day we used our three-day C.T.A. passes to take the Blue line northwest to the Wicker Park area, which some believe is a Chicago attempt to somewhat emulate the Bohemian atmosphere of New York's famed Greenwich Village...skeptics might disagree with their success if that was what they were trying to do. Then later that day we rode the Red line to a location where we boarded a free trolley to the Navy Pier. On Wednesday we rode back to the same airport on the Orange line...had we been going to O'Hare we would have again used Blue. The C.T.A. lines were much like the Washington, D.C. Metro...very fast-paced, a very scary looking track pit with electrically-charged rails, and no ticket punching or conductors in sight. Tuesday we went to Chicago's Museum of Science and Technology via a different rail system, the Metra, boarding at the intersection of Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue and riding a more traditional train... with real conductors and punched tickets to and from our destination. Besides the two extensive rail systems is an even more extensive bus system that we never got around to using during our limited stay there. I was very impressed with it all, yet I realized that unlike getting around in Manhattan, where the constraints of space drastically restrict practical personal car travel, Chicago's downtown area has plenty of parking garages and lots of general automobile traffic...
One of my most vivid movie memories was the scene at the beginning of The Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood Blues are trying to get some sleep in their ramshackle Chicago apartment...right next to an overland transit train line...with hilarious results when one passes close by. A stretch of downtown Lake Street has the line likewise going above ground, and the trains loudly thunder through as in the movie...don't think I'd want to live on that street, either. Another thing I noticed about riding the C.T.A. trains was how obviously-experienced riders would just calmly stand there not holding onto anything while the train would violently jerk as it started and stopped...at the same time I would be holding on tightly to the bar desperately struggling to maintain my balance....
I like the Chicago mass transit system, although as I mentioned before, were I actually living there I'd might as well just drive around in my own car. But for brief guests to the city such as Melissa, Will, and me, it was refreshing to shed the burdens of driving and parking...then again, we all dig walking, something some other people might not find as enjoyable...
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