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| Young people aboard the LaGuardia Link. |
"We're the oldest people on this bus by 30 years," I said, then gave a second look around and revised. "Maybe by 40 years."
It was true. Everyone else on the LaGuardia Link Q70 seemed in their mid-20s. A time when money tends to be tight.Money isn't tight for me; at least we can afford ride shares and taxis. But I can also do math. And spending $111 on an Uber from LaGuardia to Jersey City, a trip that would take about an hour with traffic, didn't make sense. Not when you can make the same trip for $7.75 — the free shuttle from the airport to 75th Street, the $2.50 subway down to the World Trade Center, and then five bucks or so — I didn't even take notice if the exact price — for the PATH train under the Hudson to Exchange Place.
Sure, it took closer to two hours, with the pause at the Oculus Starbucks so my wife could grab a revivifying cappuccino. But we weren't in a rush.
I've enjoy taking public transportation. Great way to become familiar with a place. I spent weeks in cities from Tokyo to Paris and never gotten in a cab or, more recently, called an Uber. (Not that I'm condemning the practice; I take Uber too, when necessary. The headline is a glib brag, not a blanket condemnation you need to get agitated about).
Sometimes public transportation is a challenge — last year I was offended that there was no direct public transportation route from Boston to Boxborough, so cobbled a complex public transit odyssey together. It was almost an adventure. Even when publications are paying. I don't have many rules when traveling, but I seldom take a cab when a bus works, or a plane when there's a train going the same place.
I remember going to cover the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. I checked into my motel — nothing fancy here at the old Sun-Times — and then got in the queue for the bus, smiling quietly to myself, thinking about a colleague who ran up nearly a grand in taxi bills, supposedly, in London and almost lost his job over it.
"You'll just have to find another reason to fire me," I thought, paying my fare. Plus there was a captive audience of talkative Clevelanders waiting for me there.
When there is no public transportation, there is always walking. We had a magnificent lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington. When we finished, we considered calling an Uber. It was hot, and a half hour walk back to where we were staying. We walked.
I like your stance re public transport. My view is from an environmentally friendly one. When we moved to the Chicago area four years ago, I continued my walk-bus combo everywhere I could go and then could also add “train” to that combo. It is all do-able in Chicago—city and suburbs. I love this about living here.
ReplyDeleteThen I discovered I really no longer want to drive on expressways and interstates between here and…..anywhere else. So I again hop on a bus or train and head out. I always have my iPad loaded with e-books and/or downloaded movies. I agree with Neil: getting around walking, busing, or training is a great way to get to know neighborhoods and cities. —Becca
I used the tube in London and was pleased to find it efficient and inexpensive. So easy to get everywhere including to train stations to get out of the city to visit smaller towns. And you’re right; there’s new better way to get the real feel of a city than by using public transport.
ReplyDeleterented a minivan to drive up to nowheresville Wisconsin just outside of Amherst jct. to visit family. well my ex wifes family. theres a new baby in the mix. a real joy.
ReplyDeleteno other way to get there but drive. the solitude of the northwoods is always a pleasure. the nearest store is nearly 8 miles round trip . a bit of a hike down the shoulder of a state highway populated with drunk drivers.
my brother in law complained all weekend about how much things cost while he smoked my cigarettes . they rent a hundred year old farmhouse for $425 a month. it has 6 bedrooms and 2 baths. they've been there for 35 years. we camped in the yard.
a box of 9mm only cost $11.00 less than a third of what they are in cook county. . its all relative I guess but their on a fixed income . between them their social security is only $1,900.00 per month. he grows weed on the side and she works a couple days a week at a soup kitchen. they've a nice garden.
didn't see a POC all weekend. gulf war vet cousin stopped by well I actually had to go pick him up. has the PTSD. lives on disability in a shithole hotel. hadn't seen him in 10 years. he dont have a car .
I made a gratitude list before I went to sleep that night . the pregnant niece miscarried at 7 1-2 months the next morning. tragically sad. we all went for a ride on the houseboat.
surreal weekend in rural America. I guess I understand why we dont get up there very often
Sounds like an Erskine Caldwell novel.
DeleteMy substance-abusing cousin, who I've mentioned a number of times at EGD. is bookended by TWO Erskine Caldwell novels. He's a retired Army lifer who's now a snowbird...winters in the Carolinas and summers in northern Michigan.
DeleteWent over to the dark side many years ago, and fell under the spell of Rush and Glenn (as in Beck).We were like brothers all our lives, but had a falling out twenty years ago. Tried to patch it up, but no dice. The political climate has sealed our estrangement. Things just aren't the same anymore.
My wife lost a friend when my Cuzz's wife passed, and now she wants nothing to do with Cuzz anymore. Does not want to visit either SC or MI. Used to dream and fantasize about being old and on his front porch, with bottle and pipe in hand, fondly recalling (with giggles and great glee) all the wild, silly, crazy, and funny stuff we did as kids, and then as adults. We had a long history, despite two very different walks of life.
As in so many millions of other American families, that's all out the window now. Thanks, Donnie. Thanks a lot.
Twenty years ago I found myself making multiple trips from Chicago to Santa Barbara to settle an estate and sell an elderly relative's house. I'd fly Southwest. At the time it was the cheapest option. I'd take Metra downtown from Glen Ellyn where we were living at the time. Stroll over to Wells and hop on the Orange Line bound for Midway Airport. Easy. Painless. But I was 51 and not 71. Not certain I'd do it today. Maybe. I'd need to think about it.
ReplyDeleteWhen i was much younger, I used to pine for the age of 16, when i would have a car and would no longer need to be chauffeured around by my parents. Then i got a car and felt like a king.
ReplyDeleteIt has taken many years, but taking the train to work every day and biking where ever i can beats hopping in the car 99.2% of the time.
The true measure of a society is how easily it is to get to where you want to go without having to get into a car.
The idea of public transportation is great. The only downside I can see is the public is on it. Cars for me until II cannot drive.
ReplyDeleteI worked for 40 years in public education. When I was at a conference or work related gathering, I always had an inexpensive meal and a glass of water. The taxpayer was paying for it, I'm a taxpayer, so I kept all my expenses as cheap as possible, including transportation and hotel. I marveled at how many of my peers looked at a taxpayer funded outing as an excuse to have a free fancy meal with free booze. Of course it wasn't free, the taxpayer was paying for it. After years of observing this a light bulb came on - the more conservative the politics, the more likely the person was to have the extravagant meal, booze, and fancy accommodations on the tax payer dime.
ReplyDeleteMy experience over almost 2 decades as a small town elected clerk is the higher up the food chain, the more the council and administration, mostly men, assumed the royal right of taxpayer underwriting of anything they did including networking and partying. After all, it was explained to me, you have to make like the movers and shakers to get a chance at any state or federal funding. No project was advanced or approved by merit. That those "in power", even at the lowest levels have embraced this corruption, oozes through communities like raw sewage.
DeleteI am lucky enough to live near a UP North Line station. I haven't driven downtown in awhile but friends tell me it is just a horror show on the Edens and Kennedy. So I will happily take the train.
ReplyDeleteMy sister called me for advice on going to The Loop in a few days, with a friend who doesn't know how to get around the city well & I told not to take the car, but park it at the Rosemont CTA station & take the train & then just walk two blocks for the appointment. That's what they will due. No aggravation, no looking for parking downtown & no sitting on the Kennedy while they reconstruct it for years!
DeleteI'm with you all the way on public transportation. Used it exclusively in Rome a few years back.
ReplyDeleteI was at a concert with three friends at Millennium Park last night. When the (fabulous) show came to an end and we discussed our modes home, one of us was walking, one biking, one taking the train and the last taking a bus. We dubbed ourselves the Active Transportation Alliance.
ReplyDeleteI recently visited Manhattan and took the free Q70 and then the subway ($2.90) to and from LaGuardia. I am 75 and at every staircase a young man or women cheerfully carried my suitcase up or down! Unasked. I find New Yorkers VERY nice! I felt perfectly safe. I do not use public transportation in Chicago. I live on the South side and it is not convenient at all.
ReplyDeleteHave used public transportation in Chicago-had a Metro card-and years ago used same in London and Paris. Why is European public transport so much better? Easy to use and cheaper. Because Americans believe that public transportation should be able to make enough to pay for it. It doesn't-thats why its not as good as it other parts of the world. The European governments pay for public transport-it is a public good. I think San Francisco tried to pay for some but it was abandoned after a few years.
ReplyDeleteNeil, you just became my public transit idol. The one Anonymous comment above about avoiding public transit because "the public is on it" is sad (and tinged with a little fear too?). Choosing the isolation of a car is a loss of experience, especially in a new place with adequate transit services. Support public transit everywhere by using it!
ReplyDeleteThanks. And you probably don't remember how I strenuously ballyhooed the Divvy bikes when they first showed up https://www.everygoddamnday.com/2013/09/divvy-diary-bike-is-time-machine.html
DeleteHave ridden systems all over North America. Transit junkie all my life. Green Hornet streetcars outside my bedroom window, on W. Madison. The wooden cars of the Lake Street "L" a couple of blocks away. Then the suburbs for 11 years. The North Shore Line, close enough to hear the whistles and the crossing gates and the steel wheels on steel rails. Never rode on it, though. Go figure. You snooze, you lose. And the Evanston "L" and the C &NW were only a couple of miles to the east.
ReplyDeleteChose Evanston as my home, in the mid-70s, specifically because of its excellent rail access. Had zero desire to commute to work by car, anywhere. I was going to work downtown and take trains downtown. Which I did, off and on, for almost two decades.
When my job sucked and my marriage crumbled, in the early Nineties, and I ended up in a crummy studio, those trips on the Evanston Express, twice a day, were my only solace. Endured that for nearly a year. Stared out the train window and wondered how the hell I had slid down the chute and was back on Square One.
Didn't have a car, and made a game out of seeing how many bus and train rides I could notch on a monthly CTA pass. I think I made it to a hundred rides once, which would have been about thirty cents a trip. Nobody knew, because I had nobody to brag to.
Cleveland was, and is, a different world, Buses are for the desperate. The RTA's single heavy-rail rapid transit line connects the airport to downtown, and then runs to the opposite side of town.Two light-rail lines snake out to elegant Shaker Heights, much of which has seen better days. That's it. Nothing like the vast Chicago system. Driving is nearly unavoidable. I can walk to a train stop, but I don't really travel downtown all that much, and I never worked there. Can't remember the last time I caught a bus.
Whenever I'm back in Chicago, I ride on the "L" ...which still doesn't scare me.
At my age, maybe it should. I'm probably a juicy target now. Old, white, visitor.
Have heard a lot of bad ju-ju about the CTA. Hope it's exaggerated. I miss it.
But perhaps I am just being nostalgic for what it was...and not what it is.
And for what I was.
Then there's a quote i read someplace: "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars, it's where the rich use public transport".
ReplyDeleteAfter 36 years we sold the big house (kids finally gone) and purchased a condo in downtown Homewood. Now we can walk a few blocks to everything…Metra Electric, (by the way with a brand new rebuilt station) Aurelio’s Pizza, Homewood Library, several neighborhood watering holes, Bergstein’s Deli, many restaurants…it’s wonderful! And we can take public transportation almost anywhere in Chicagoland starting at our Homewood Metra Station.
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