Crawl de El de Chicago 0.5 Beta

If the ‘Going Public’ column of Red Eye is to be believed, the CTA is the most unloved entity that is found on either side of the Lake Michigan. Well, apparently a journalist called Kyra Kyles makes a living just by catering to the gripes and whining of Chicagoans about the CTA. I can hear the purists questioning my credentials because of my keeping Red Eye as the source of information and news. Well, I listen to NPR too, occasionally.

As an implant to Chicago, I’ve always been impressed by the CTA. In the first few weeks in Chicago, I used to commute from the Streeterville neighborhood to UIC, by the red and blue lines. In those days I used to speculate where this Howard might be. Well, I had to find out one day. Days of exploring the city ensued forth: by buses, bike, trains and to some extend, by car. Having a CTA U Pass ensured that the trains and buses were used extensively in this quest. And I saw that it was good, as you say in the Old Testament.

But, there were limitations on the breadth of this coverage. The only time that I’ve been to the south side beyond Chinatown except by car was during a Critical Mass bike ride. I had a buffer and protection of a thousand bikers riding down with me. We passed through some grand boulevards and some shady sections too, but would I do that alone? Well no. Call me a coward, but I’m being honest. But there are folks among the Critical Mass riders who drop out as soon as any ride goes south of Roosevelt. Similarly, there were many parts of the city that I never bothered visiting, either due to the lack of need or the lack of interest.

These all reasons led me to a fine idea. I call it “fine” because everybody who heard about this plan declared it as splendid. But it is yet another matter that nobody wanted to have any part of it. Probably ‘splendid’ is a euphemism for eccentric. Anyway, the idea is simple: Ride all the lines of the CTA back to back in a single stretch. It appeared simple in paper, but I had no clue how long it would take or how I should prepare for it. From past trips on many of the lines, I estimated the trip to take over 12 hours. Piece of cake! Little did I know what was in store for me!

I did some online research and found that somebody had already done the same thing with the New York’s subways some time in the sixties and now they even have an Amateur New York Subway Riding Committee to keep track of the records. But I could not find any mention about the same feat attempted with the Chicago El network. I had planned to do this for over a year, always postponing and never actually moving even a finger to implement this plan. But by January 08, I knew my time was running out. I may never have time to do this in the conceivable future or even worse, I may even move from the city. That got me going and the date was finalized. January 17, 2008.

When the ride was over, I ended up with a sore butt, a spreadsheet with accurate times at which I arrived at each station throughout the journey and a lot of notes scribbled on a notebook. I thought of writing everything down in a single article but the experience proved to be too large to be compressed into a piece of writing small enough to keep the readers awake. And hence this bunch of smaller pieces.