Beth vs. Public Transportation

I decided to start a series of posts about random aspects of my new life in Chicago. Since I spend a good part of every day on CTA (public transportation including the L and bus systems), I thought this topic would be a good one to start on. I’m including a map of the train system because otherwise this post would be unclear for anyone not familiar with CTA. Sidenote: I live north of the Loop near the State/Division stop and I get off at the Central Park stop on the Pink line.



Yesterday as I was starting to write this blog about CTA, I was pretty happy about my new found navigation skills. I felt like I had at least the train system down, granted it is pretty straightforward and user friendly. I had never gotten REALLY lost, maybe a little turned around or unsure of the direction I was facing, but never ever lost. I was pretty proud of my confidence and skill, so today was ultra disappointing because I messed up big….twice. Two times in one day!! And to really top this day off, the CTA put into effect changes just today to cut back on routes (along with about 1000 jobs) which means that the trains are less frequent and more packed than usual. So I got lost on the one day when a mistake will likely cost you 15 minutes instead of 3, and also the day when CTA regulars everywhere in Chicago are freaking out about the cut backs. Awesome.

My first mistake was pretty simple. I usually get off the red train near the bottom of the loop and transfer to the pink line. I like this strategy and it’s only a short climb to get from the red subway to the elevated platform for the pink line. Well I accidentally got off at a stop that is at the top of the loop which I have never used for my transfer. I acted all cool until I realized that I was walking up the stairs marked “exit” against the flow of people traffic composed of frenzied commuters who were very frustrated about the lack of CTA trains today. Oh well right? No, not so much. I ended up standing on the platform for about 20 minutes instead of being able to walk right onto a pink train like I usually do. I don’t know if the lack of pink trains was the result of the cutbacks or just because it was a different stop. Either way, my commute was extra long today…

My second CTA blunder occurred as I was traveling from my internship to the Chicago Semester Office downtown. I had looked up directions quick before leaving work, so I was sure I knew exactly how to get there. All I had to do was transfer from Pink to a southbound Red train, take a left on Addams St., and 50 feet later, I’d be inside the nice warm office building. The tricky thing about the red line is that it runs underground so it’s very important to find the correction exit so you climb up to ground level around the street you want to be on. I’m terrible at this because usually I just follow the crowd until we surface and then I try to figure out what street I’m on. Tonight I found out conformity really is a bad thing! I ended up walking about 7 blocks when I should have been able to cross one street and walk into my office building. I think I came out around in the middle of Monroe and completely forgot the order of street names. It should be kinda easy since they are named after Presidents, but that useful fact also apparently slipped my mind. And then of course I was too embarrassed to just do a 180 and walk back the down the street when I realized my mistake, so I crossed and found a huge map sign on the other side to reorient myself. Pretty sure I looked like an idiot tourist, but eventually I found the office and accepted the fact that maybe I don’t really have CTA down just yet.