Chicago In Bloom
A few more words about Chicago as a layover city - for me usually 2 or 3 or 4 hours. I see the city only in snapshot form - I don't have to pay the "urban lug" for living in high priced Chicago housing, don't have to go downtown everyday to work. Lots of things differ for me on a three hour visit versus a year 'round resident. Given all that it's still a great layover city for me at least.




I visit quite a few cities in my work - often have 2 or 3 hours between making a delivery and getting on a bus or train. Most are o k- but only a couple are what I'd call enjoyable and agreeable places for a day visit: Denver and Chicago being at the top of my layover list. Both are have great public transit so they're easy to get around, both strike me as clean and both have a good variety of places to eat.

This work happens to take me to Chicago fairly often - a lot of trips end in the western suburbs. Other times I'm making a transportation connection in Chicago and Chicago is the major hub for Amtrak - a major terminal for Greyhound and of course host to two major airports, O'Hare and Midway. So lots going on. That could tilt either way - if making those connections were difficult the size of the area could be a major pain - as it assuredly is in Los Angeles - just accept three hours as the price to get across town if you're trying to use public transportation.

Chicago, with metro area populaton of 9.4 million, has the infrastructure in place to make for relatively easy urban navigation - the cornerstone is the network of commuter rail that radiates north, west and south from downtown Chicago on trackage owned mostly now by the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroads. That's the Metra System and it's one key to what makes Chicago work; four hundred ninety five miles and 230 stations the blanket the metro area.

Easy, comfortable and cheap transportation into the city and back to the 'burbs. The CTA or Chicago Transit Authority operates its own commuter rail or light rail system - those trains are named by colors - the Blue Line Train, the Orange Line, Red Line, Brown Line etc. In addition there are two major bus systems - the CTA for the city itself and the PACE system serving the western suburbs and providing transportation to the CTA train and Metra train stations.

Pretty well honed system and once you understand the basics you can work your way around the area pretty well. For most drops in the western 'burbs you find the nearest PACE route to a Metra station - take that to downtown - right to Union Station then Amtrak or Greyhound to your next event - or the Orange Line train to Midway or the Blue Line to O'Hare. Sure it still takes a while but the basic players are those systems - not nearly as confusing as Los Angeles with many more entities involved. I find considerable difficulty in doping out a trip that crosses jurisdictions in the LA Basin.






A few more pictures from my Chicago afternoon - this was the time between a drop in Woodridge, IL - Exit 271 off I-55 - about 22 miles southwest of the Loop - and my Amtrak train, the Texas Eagle, to Bloomington for another pickup.



One of many Chicago icons- the steel bridges across the Chicago River. Most are of a "bascule trunion" design where the two leafs or sections of the bridge rotate upward - counterbalanced on the backside to allow ships to pass through the city. There are 45 movable bridges crossing the Chicago River - many within the downtown loop.

Bridge lifts used to happen 40,000 times a year - in the 40s and 50s - but there's little river traffic now and the towers are unmanned. The bridges are still lifted or raised twice a year now to insure the mechanism remains in working condition and to provide for sailboat passage to and from Lake Michigan on the spring and autumn migration.

The Chicago River used to flow into Lake Michigan - that flow was "reversed" by locks, canals in the 1800s so the flow is outward from the city west toward the Mississippi. However - and you're among the few who'll know this - the flow in the river today is actually in both directions. The surface or upper flow is indeed westward but at the bottom of the channel - due to density differences - the flow is still east toward the Lake in places at least. Hmmm - sounds impossible but that's what I've read.


Next a view of the Downer's Grove Metra station - the station I use in gettting from Woodridge, Bolingbrook and adjacent suburbs to downtown. Fare of $3.90 for the 45 minute ride - two level coaches - called gallery cars - and a great way to cover 20 miles effortlessly. These stops and lines go back I suppose to the early 1900s. The stations serve as nucleus for a "small town" community. Downer's Grove is a small town within Metro Chicago. Banks, bakeries, delis, bookstores, nowadays Starbucks and Caribou Coffee, movies. bowling alleys and bars and you name it. If you have to be in a large city this one looks like it makes that life easier than most - not for me - but I could picture it better in Chicago than any of the other large cities I visit.

The grade level crossings of the Metra trains through the suburbs is also the source of the occasional train vs car or pedestrian accidents - the autos and pedestrians always losing. A plaque inside the DG station memorializes a incident in 1947 when the passenger train, the Nebraska Zephyr derailed in Downers Grove, crashed into this station, killing 3 and injuring 30.


Most downtown areas are frankly rather dirty - but not Chicago. An army of workers are out there sweeping - sometimes they're pretty desultory - but they keep even cigarette butts swept of the sidewalk. For morning and evening rush the police in yellow day-glo vests are at the intersections moving traffic and pedestrians - keeping grid-lock at bay. There may be something to be said for padding the rolls of sanitation and police departments - at least they have something to show for it in Chicago. It's in welcome contrast to New York City on so many levels. A couple of other cities where I can easily enjoy a 3 hour layover - Boston oh, I don't know - one more - heck maybe Memphis but quie a way down the list.




One more Chicago image - tulips on State Street - alongside the largest public library in the United States - the Harold Washington Public Library. They did spend the bucks on this building and to me as a library it's lousy - there are no books - never have found the books. They're all hidden away and you request them. no fun. There are no magazines - they're all shelved and brought out on request only - what fun is that if you can't browse the covers and see what sounds interesting and the lighting - fluorsecent and colder than a winter night in the crow's nest on the Murmansk Run. The lighting, interor colors, lack of visible books and magazines gives the place a sterile feel that is not what I like in a library.

These tulips were at their prime - May 4th. Here in Kansas City our tulips bloom between April 5th and 15th - usually they have a shortened season - beaten down by heavy rain or this year zapped and brought to their litle tulip knees by a late freeze.

Sinatra and Garland sang about it - I'll write about it again - the locals know it - an uncommon city: Chicago.


Dick Williams
Homebase but prepping for another trip to Chicago