CHICAGO | General Discussions

[jtown,man]

Second round of thoughts after moving here(all transportation related):

1. Holy crap, people really line up and turn left on red lights. I am used to one car doing this back in Norfolk, but I have seen up to FOUR do it here in Chicago. Drivers are really aggressive, but I like it so far.

2. The stories of homeless people on the Blue line have proven true for me. Going to and from the airport I had no issues. However, last week there was a homeless dude taking 4 seats sleeping during rush hour(I barely had room to get on the train) and then when I was heading home(still around rush hour) there was a dude passed out on two seats but had a trash bag in the floor partially blocking the way and he also had two milk jugs with a mystery fluid splashing around. The half of the train where he wasn't at, full. The half he was in, empty. I sat next to him to get a seat but quickly realized why no one was sitting over there, it stunk so bad. I had two 'country boy' instincts. One, I wanted to tell the first dude to get up because the train was packed and its so damn rude to take up all the seats. The second dude, I wanted to wake him up and tell him to take his jugs and trash off the train, to be civilized. But the second part of me(my better side) insisted that this was messed up. I felt bad that these dudes were so comfortable sleeping on a full train and this might be the only place to go to stay warm and get some sleep. In any case, I will need some time to get used to those scenes, and I am uncomfortable at this point even saying I will get used to the nuisance aspect of it or the human aspect of those scenes.

3. Red line. All the crime issues from the news seem to be from the Red line, at a rate I wasn't expecting. Is there a reason for this? I mean, I know its 24/7 but at the same time a lot of the crime that makes the news is during normal business hours or early in the evening.

4. My school gives out free Ventra cards. I have been getting around town for free and exploring a lot. The trains and buses have been really easy to use and quite reliable. Biking has been fun and driving to a few choice places(target near my house, home depot etc) has been a breeze. Point? Transportation has been incredibly easy since I've moved here.