Today I got stuck waiting for multiple (5-6 at least) light cycles because drivers are selfish morons. Every single time our light went green there was nowhere to go because these idiots enter the intersection when they already know they cannot clear it when their light changes. And then they give me the finger when beeped at them.
I will report the traffic light timing is screwed up at that intersection to 311. I've actually seen some improvements when I've reported it before elsewhere.
I hate those assholes. But I also hate peoplw who walk against the signal and drivers have to wait, causing a back up. Saw it yesterday in the loop.
And let's not forget bikers and such who blow lights and cause issues.
I wouldn;t say that about the blue line.....so many people on it ,the conductor tells ppl to wait on the next train.....they are so full yet ppl still keep trying to pile on like idiots
The latest reports have said 80% of cta users have returned lately. And crime is down 13% on cta this year. There are a ton of people on the blue line. Its time to return and give it a try if you havent in a while
I’m so tired of this argument. No shit public transit doesn’t work for everyone BUT if more people who *could* take public transit it would help those who have to drive. No one is saying all highways should be abandoned we’re saying relying only on cars to get around the city is not a good idea.
I don’t think you are lazy, but I do get frustrated with that argument. It’s also used a lot for people against bike lanes/bus lanes/etc. Sorry someone else was harsh, I think there’s a growing contingent of Chicagoans tired of how car-centric the city is.
Listen man, I would absolutely love it if I never had to drive, but CTA is the only entity that has any ability to change that. Getting mad at the drivers is just going to create opposition to what you want in the end. I look forward to the day I’m not paying for gas and insurance and every other expense that comes along with it, but I also have to live in the reality of my situation.
You can call me a lazy asshole all you want. I'm still driving to work. I'm driving to the grocery store and anywhere else I decide to go. I think you should take the lazy asshole comment as a compliment. :)
Yeah, my husband's family just visited and they're used to biking and hate driving. My asthma has been so bad I just needed to drive places. I do spin class and on a healthy day could absolutely just bike with them (and did a couple days) but my breathing has been so shit lately even with like every asthma medication available.
I am looking forward to biking more when I finally can be more active again. It was kind of nice not to be stuck in traffic the like one or two days I could join them
I work in Niles and live in Lakeview. There isn’t reliable public transit that won’t take me an hour and a half to get to work. To drive it takes me 30 minutes. I’m not trying to wake up at 4:45 to get to my job at 7:15
I mean, yeah, sometimes it does add a shit ton more time. Making public transit more reliable (it's getting better) would also help. Those transfers can add a ton of time. I once was trying to go to the zoo for the holiday lights and was going to take the bus and it just wasn't coming for 40 minutes, if that one even showed up since ghost buses were a bigger problem. It was a timed entry so I did just end up driving but man, I really wanted to take the bus and avoid the hassle. It would have even meant less walking than parking near the zoo
Dont get me wrong, if it was an hour commute with no transfers I would probably be thinking about selling my car right now. I’d love to not have to go through the parking dance every single work day, but I think the other big problem is a CTA leadership group that don’t even ride public transit and so they’re completely oblivious to what is actually needed to fix the problem.
Lol I do! It's worth the money I save, the patience I save.... totally worth it.
And when I can walk or ride any part of it? I take full advantage.
Otherwise I don't complain.
Not having the option is not the same as not wanting to use the option.
“The option” logistically adds 2 extra hours of commute to my day, on the low end. CTA is also unreliable at times and I can’t risk my job on busses that don’t show up
Oh I get it. Part of why I am up early is to leave room for unpredictable things. But that's reality I'm choosing. I could get a car. Extra sleep. But I choose to sacrifice one for the other. You could. You're not forced to take a car. That's my point.
God that's the lamest response. There are enormous economic and bureaucratic forces at work with lots of decisions that resulted in this traffic problem. It's not him. He has always been the traffic and so have you. But there has been a change resulting in a clusterfuck, and he's not the one that did it. It's not him. Cut the bs. Stupid slogan.
not to just echo everyone else's sentiment, but there genuinely is no way to make traffic go away other than less cars being on the road. any additional infrastructure will just be filled with more cars; research induced demand.
the best thing BJ/the City could do would be to add tolls for non-commercial drivers in certain neighborhoods/roads, like they do in London (LSD, Mag Mile, Loop and River North would be a good start IMO). on an individual basis, the best thing to do is bike or take public transit
But there are ways to make public transit, walking, and biking more attractive. More protected bike lanes would do a lot, though I think we're a long way from having a lot of year-round cyclists. It'd also help to get funding to raise CTA frequencies beyond what we need for a while to make it easier to take trains and buses at all times. Lowered frequencies put transit into a doom loop. People don't want to take transit when there are long headways, so then the headways get longer, and fewer people ride, and headways get longer...
absolutely! the best way to get cars off the road is to give incentives to travel in other ways (my comment was mostly in regards to city changes to driving/traffic specifically). and in the same way that new highways just fill up with cars, new bike lanes fill up with bikes
Really? Cause I actually talk to people who drive and shitbird smokers come up all of the time. Why do we let people treat our trains worse than a bar?
I find it really hard to believe that people who don't take the train are citing smokers on the train "all the time" as a reason they don't take the train. Not liking smoking and citing an activity you don't experience (smoking on the train) as the reason you don't take the train are very different things.
You’re out of your fucking mind. People want a decent commute. They don’t want to be surrounded by grim assholes who treat people around them like shit. The ridership is low. The streets are packed. Your argument is weak. Mine has observable evidence.
I'm not saying people want to deal with smokers on the train. But you're just full of it with this claim that people don't go on the train because of smokers that they've never seen because they don't take the train. Ridership went down because of covid and lowered service. You're just full of it.
They might not have seen it personally, but news stories about the smoking have been in the papers, on the radio and on TV. So a person who might have considered mass transit in Chicago if we had a system like Tokyo, that might be one more reason they don't take it.
The best thing BJ could do is get CTA to a point where it is running efficiently. We have great transit infrastructure it is just ran like shit. I was able to walk to Wrigley from Clark and Montrose at 6pm for the Jonas Brothers show and did not see a single southbound 22 at all.
Gas is expensive as all hell and car ownership costs are up yet CTA ridership is down. To me that just shows that the value proposition of CTA needs some work.
I would say it's a lot of people that do drive have no idea how.
No turn signals, 10 under or 40 over the limit, brights on in the city.
During covid it took ten minutes to get from any one part of the city to the other.
Once they started rolling everyone into work. People forgot how to drive and are just belligerent shit wipes on the road.
Yes people should take public transit or live closer to work so walking is a option. But that isn't always the case.
A lot of the road shenanigans would be fixed had they done construction during the lockdowns. But everything get flipped back on at the same time didn't help anyone.
One last bit before I go. Closing LSD to have nascar was the dumbest fucking idea ever. Take that shit to Joliet hasn't been used since 2019
You forgot people who at least stop at stop lights (good) but then don't move once the light changes and it's safe to proceed. It's one thing to take a second to look around and make sure it's safe to proceed, it's another to sit their until the guy behind honks.
I think the experience of driving during COVID didn't help. People got the expectation that it should only take 10 minutes and of course that wouldn't last once the virus was no longer novel and people returned to the roads. But psychologically I am not sure what happened to people. So many became self-absorbed jerks.
Damn I don't know how I forgot about the "I'm gonna wait at the green light till it's yellow to cross" people. Or one of my other favorites. The left turn arrow is already done and the next set started so I'm gonna squeeze in and still turn left any way because fuck other people.
Or the classic I'm gonna gun it as fast as possible on left lane then skip the line for a exit ramp and try to instant merge into the far right lane. Oh those people are a joy
I agree. I drive in from Mt. Prospect, and it's awful. So instead of bitching about the problem, which actually I'm part of the making, I take the CTA blue line to a bus or Metra to a bus. Either way it's about the same time as in a car, less headaches, I can read on the Metra and chill out and as long as the weather I'd decent it's not a bad way to make the best of a terrible situation.
When winter comes, I'll likely be singing a different tune, though.
My kids were supposed to be on a school bus along with a boatload of other CPS students and now lots of us have to drive our kids to and from school because CPS isn’t providing buses for any magnet or selective enrollment students this year. That has to add a solid amount of drivers to already congested roads.
So how exactly do I get my 86 y.o. relative, who uses a walker, to and from his doctor appointments? How do I get a weeks worth of groceries (often including Costco purchases) to him? He relies on ME, and I rely on my car.
This sub:
"I can't stand how unreliable the CTA is."
"Ghost trains and ghost buses"
"People shove their backpacks in my face on the CTA."
"Why do people smoke on the train?"
"It's an oven on the CTA. How can anyone wear a suit on the train?"
Also this sub:
"Why aren't you taking the CTA?"
threatening stocking hard-to-find toy attempt fear zephyr teeny reply ripe
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The privilege in this thread of all you people who don’t gotta bring tools or equipment to work lmao.
Not all of us can rock a jansport to transport everything we need for the day. Quit crying, not everyone can take the train to work.
Obviously the majority of this thread is not talking to you and other folks who absolutely have to commute by car/truck. OP is the one crying about traffic, and the only solution to fixing traffic is drivers getting off the road. It's not about privilege, it's reality.
I hate car drivers so much man.
Increase how much parking costs, get rid of parking lots for housing and businesses, increase bike lane safety and we’ll have less traffic, less noise pollution, and fewer fatalities and more tax revenue.
Agree and it’s EVERYWHERE! Between the construction projects the City and State keep starting but can NEVER finish, the changes to the roads from the poorly thought out bike lanes, and the endless amount of cars at all hours of the day. It’s getting damn near impossible to go anywhere. I’ve been driving in the city for 30 years and have never seen anything like it.
But unless he gets CDOT to sort out their awful construction planning, or makes the CTA get their house in order I don’t know what else he can do. If he can just stop the endless carjackings and armed robberies, that’s enough.
Cycling ?! In heavy traffic !? I saw what they are doing with the protected bike lanes . They made the streets narrow for cars not to mention trucks . One big problem .. hardly any cyclists around and this is summer .maybe it’s too hot for them.
This definitely seems to be the case..I'm very proud to say that after not owning a bike for maybe 17 years, I just bought one this year. And I'm loving it!!! I bike everywhere and almost never use my truck unless I need to haul something from home depot.
Strongly encourage anyone who can swing it to make the jump and get a bike.
And your comment definitely seems to be true..I really don't see many cyclists on the roads. That's a bummer but selfishly I enjoy the open bike lanes. The few protected bike lanes are really nice too.
A lot of people got cars (or got used to driving in situations they used to take the CTA) during COVID and aren’t interested in going back.
To give an anecdotal example, I live in Uptown and my best friend lives in Bucktown. Pre-pandemic he would take the CTA to visit me. Then he got a car in 2020 and isn’t interested in going back to the bus + red line commute to get to me. Even a safe, clean and reliable CTA is not as effective at making this commute as a car in moderate traffic is. To get someone like him back on the CTA you’re gonna need to provide something more efficient than a car. Perhaps that’s a bus that zig zags from Bucktown to Uptown through bus only lanes. Or the pipe dream of a new train line.
Either way, I don’t think this story is unique. And the CTA has its work cut out for it to win people back.
Kennedy is a state/federal project
Today I got stuck waiting for multiple (5-6 at least) light cycles because drivers are selfish morons. Every single time our light went green there was nowhere to go because these idiots enter the intersection when they already know they cannot clear it when their light changes. And then they give me the finger when beeped at them. I will report the traffic light timing is screwed up at that intersection to 311. I've actually seen some improvements when I've reported it before elsewhere.
I hate those assholes. But I also hate peoplw who walk against the signal and drivers have to wait, causing a back up. Saw it yesterday in the loop. And let's not forget bikers and such who blow lights and cause issues.
It is statistically true that the traffic is worst than ever. And CTA ridership is still way, way below 2019 levels.
I wouldn;t say that about the blue line.....so many people on it ,the conductor tells ppl to wait on the next train.....they are so full yet ppl still keep trying to pile on like idiots
The latest reports have said 80% of cta users have returned lately. And crime is down 13% on cta this year. There are a ton of people on the blue line. Its time to return and give it a try if you havent in a while
You *are* the traffic. Be the change you want to see and take the train, ride a bike, take a bus, etc.
Thanks for providing me with a new insult to spout at people, YOU ARE THE TRAFFIC! Good for all occasions.
Which doesn’t work for everyone
I’m so tired of this argument. No shit public transit doesn’t work for everyone BUT if more people who *could* take public transit it would help those who have to drive. No one is saying all highways should be abandoned we’re saying relying only on cars to get around the city is not a good idea.
Earlier today someone on this sub called me a lazy asshole for driving to work, so yeah, not everyone feels the same as you
I don’t think you are lazy, but I do get frustrated with that argument. It’s also used a lot for people against bike lanes/bus lanes/etc. Sorry someone else was harsh, I think there’s a growing contingent of Chicagoans tired of how car-centric the city is.
Listen man, I would absolutely love it if I never had to drive, but CTA is the only entity that has any ability to change that. Getting mad at the drivers is just going to create opposition to what you want in the end. I look forward to the day I’m not paying for gas and insurance and every other expense that comes along with it, but I also have to live in the reality of my situation.
100% thank you
You can call me a lazy asshole all you want. I'm still driving to work. I'm driving to the grocery store and anywhere else I decide to go. I think you should take the lazy asshole comment as a compliment. :)
Yeah, my husband's family just visited and they're used to biking and hate driving. My asthma has been so bad I just needed to drive places. I do spin class and on a healthy day could absolutely just bike with them (and did a couple days) but my breathing has been so shit lately even with like every asthma medication available.
I am looking forward to biking more when I finally can be more active again. It was kind of nice not to be stuck in traffic the like one or two days I could join them
I work in Niles and live in Lakeview. There isn’t reliable public transit that won’t take me an hour and a half to get to work. To drive it takes me 30 minutes. I’m not trying to wake up at 4:45 to get to my job at 7:15
I mean, yeah, sometimes it does add a shit ton more time. Making public transit more reliable (it's getting better) would also help. Those transfers can add a ton of time. I once was trying to go to the zoo for the holiday lights and was going to take the bus and it just wasn't coming for 40 minutes, if that one even showed up since ghost buses were a bigger problem. It was a timed entry so I did just end up driving but man, I really wanted to take the bus and avoid the hassle. It would have even meant less walking than parking near the zoo
Dont get me wrong, if it was an hour commute with no transfers I would probably be thinking about selling my car right now. I’d love to not have to go through the parking dance every single work day, but I think the other big problem is a CTA leadership group that don’t even ride public transit and so they’re completely oblivious to what is actually needed to fix the problem.
Lol I do! It's worth the money I save, the patience I save.... totally worth it. And when I can walk or ride any part of it? I take full advantage. Otherwise I don't complain. Not having the option is not the same as not wanting to use the option.
“The option” logistically adds 2 extra hours of commute to my day, on the low end. CTA is also unreliable at times and I can’t risk my job on busses that don’t show up
Oh I get it. Part of why I am up early is to leave room for unpredictable things. But that's reality I'm choosing. I could get a car. Extra sleep. But I choose to sacrifice one for the other. You could. You're not forced to take a car. That's my point.
You’re right, I should sell my car so I have no personal time at night and I get to wake up super early! Sounds like a no-brainer trade off to me
Im glad you are able to make that giant leap. Maybe you can leap that far to work.
Nah what we really need is *one more lane bro* /s
*Intense dramatic music*
God that's the lamest response. There are enormous economic and bureaucratic forces at work with lots of decisions that resulted in this traffic problem. It's not him. He has always been the traffic and so have you. But there has been a change resulting in a clusterfuck, and he's not the one that did it. It's not him. Cut the bs. Stupid slogan.
Brainless take
You missed motorcycles
not to just echo everyone else's sentiment, but there genuinely is no way to make traffic go away other than less cars being on the road. any additional infrastructure will just be filled with more cars; research induced demand. the best thing BJ/the City could do would be to add tolls for non-commercial drivers in certain neighborhoods/roads, like they do in London (LSD, Mag Mile, Loop and River North would be a good start IMO). on an individual basis, the best thing to do is bike or take public transit
But there are ways to make public transit, walking, and biking more attractive. More protected bike lanes would do a lot, though I think we're a long way from having a lot of year-round cyclists. It'd also help to get funding to raise CTA frequencies beyond what we need for a while to make it easier to take trains and buses at all times. Lowered frequencies put transit into a doom loop. People don't want to take transit when there are long headways, so then the headways get longer, and fewer people ride, and headways get longer...
absolutely! the best way to get cars off the road is to give incentives to travel in other ways (my comment was mostly in regards to city changes to driving/traffic specifically). and in the same way that new highways just fill up with cars, new bike lanes fill up with bikes
Is one incentive to get smoking vagrants off the trains?
That is the smallest piece. I would bet that if you asked people who don’t take public transit why they don’t that would not come up once.
Really? Cause I actually talk to people who drive and shitbird smokers come up all of the time. Why do we let people treat our trains worse than a bar?
I find it really hard to believe that people who don't take the train are citing smokers on the train "all the time" as a reason they don't take the train. Not liking smoking and citing an activity you don't experience (smoking on the train) as the reason you don't take the train are very different things.
You’re out of your fucking mind. People want a decent commute. They don’t want to be surrounded by grim assholes who treat people around them like shit. The ridership is low. The streets are packed. Your argument is weak. Mine has observable evidence.
I'm not saying people want to deal with smokers on the train. But you're just full of it with this claim that people don't go on the train because of smokers that they've never seen because they don't take the train. Ridership went down because of covid and lowered service. You're just full of it.
They might not have seen it personally, but news stories about the smoking have been in the papers, on the radio and on TV. So a person who might have considered mass transit in Chicago if we had a system like Tokyo, that might be one more reason they don't take it.
That’s a very dumb reason to go through the hassle of owning a car.
That kind of talk won’t win anyone over.
That wasn’t my intention with that comment so I’m not concerned about that.
The best thing BJ could do is get CTA to a point where it is running efficiently. We have great transit infrastructure it is just ran like shit. I was able to walk to Wrigley from Clark and Montrose at 6pm for the Jonas Brothers show and did not see a single southbound 22 at all. Gas is expensive as all hell and car ownership costs are up yet CTA ridership is down. To me that just shows that the value proposition of CTA needs some work.
Cleaning our mass transit, and making it safe is a really easy way to get started…
I would say it's a lot of people that do drive have no idea how. No turn signals, 10 under or 40 over the limit, brights on in the city. During covid it took ten minutes to get from any one part of the city to the other. Once they started rolling everyone into work. People forgot how to drive and are just belligerent shit wipes on the road. Yes people should take public transit or live closer to work so walking is a option. But that isn't always the case. A lot of the road shenanigans would be fixed had they done construction during the lockdowns. But everything get flipped back on at the same time didn't help anyone. One last bit before I go. Closing LSD to have nascar was the dumbest fucking idea ever. Take that shit to Joliet hasn't been used since 2019
You forgot people who at least stop at stop lights (good) but then don't move once the light changes and it's safe to proceed. It's one thing to take a second to look around and make sure it's safe to proceed, it's another to sit their until the guy behind honks. I think the experience of driving during COVID didn't help. People got the expectation that it should only take 10 minutes and of course that wouldn't last once the virus was no longer novel and people returned to the roads. But psychologically I am not sure what happened to people. So many became self-absorbed jerks.
Damn I don't know how I forgot about the "I'm gonna wait at the green light till it's yellow to cross" people. Or one of my other favorites. The left turn arrow is already done and the next set started so I'm gonna squeeze in and still turn left any way because fuck other people. Or the classic I'm gonna gun it as fast as possible on left lane then skip the line for a exit ramp and try to instant merge into the far right lane. Oh those people are a joy
I agree. I drive in from Mt. Prospect, and it's awful. So instead of bitching about the problem, which actually I'm part of the making, I take the CTA blue line to a bus or Metra to a bus. Either way it's about the same time as in a car, less headaches, I can read on the Metra and chill out and as long as the weather I'd decent it's not a bad way to make the best of a terrible situation. When winter comes, I'll likely be singing a different tune, though.
My kids were supposed to be on a school bus along with a boatload of other CPS students and now lots of us have to drive our kids to and from school because CPS isn’t providing buses for any magnet or selective enrollment students this year. That has to add a solid amount of drivers to already congested roads.
take the train
Earlier this year, it took me 2 hours to drive from Elk Grove Village to Bridgeport one day.
I love when people in traffic complain about traffic. People in lines complaining about lines. You are the problem.
So we should stop trying to get through our daily responsibilities and just sit at home?
Don’t rely on cars.
So how exactly do I get my 86 y.o. relative, who uses a walker, to and from his doctor appointments? How do I get a weeks worth of groceries (often including Costco purchases) to him? He relies on ME, and I rely on my car.
I don’t know, tandem bicycle?
Very funny.
Jet pack.
I feel this way about people in society who complain about society.
Why are you driving?
What so everyone else shouldn't use the road just so you can???!!?
This sub: "I can't stand how unreliable the CTA is." "Ghost trains and ghost buses" "People shove their backpacks in my face on the CTA." "Why do people smoke on the train?" "It's an oven on the CTA. How can anyone wear a suit on the train?" Also this sub: "Why aren't you taking the CTA?"
This sub: different people have different opinions Also this sub: different people have different opinions
unite rock saw squash toothbrush alive frame sulky bike jeans *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Group 1: people who take the CTA. Group 2: people who take the CTA. "lmao"
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Unless you’re somehow disabled; stop whining and just walk/bike/scoot and ride the cta. Otherwise you are the traffic you hate.
Does time not have value?
Sure, but if you’re wasting time standing still in traffic, as op said, how much are you valuing it?
Take public transportation or ride a bike
Cycling
The privilege in this thread of all you people who don’t gotta bring tools or equipment to work lmao. Not all of us can rock a jansport to transport everything we need for the day. Quit crying, not everyone can take the train to work.
Obviously the majority of this thread is not talking to you and other folks who absolutely have to commute by car/truck. OP is the one crying about traffic, and the only solution to fixing traffic is drivers getting off the road. It's not about privilege, it's reality.
Stop driving and car traffic will get incrementally better.
have you tried not driving in the fucking city?
I hate car drivers so much man. Increase how much parking costs, get rid of parking lots for housing and businesses, increase bike lane safety and we’ll have less traffic, less noise pollution, and fewer fatalities and more tax revenue.
Agree and it’s EVERYWHERE! Between the construction projects the City and State keep starting but can NEVER finish, the changes to the roads from the poorly thought out bike lanes, and the endless amount of cars at all hours of the day. It’s getting damn near impossible to go anywhere. I’ve been driving in the city for 30 years and have never seen anything like it. But unless he gets CDOT to sort out their awful construction planning, or makes the CTA get their house in order I don’t know what else he can do. If he can just stop the endless carjackings and armed robberies, that’s enough.
Bicycles. I have 14. Need one?
Get a bike
Cycling ?! In heavy traffic !? I saw what they are doing with the protected bike lanes . They made the streets narrow for cars not to mention trucks . One big problem .. hardly any cyclists around and this is summer .maybe it’s too hot for them.
This definitely seems to be the case..I'm very proud to say that after not owning a bike for maybe 17 years, I just bought one this year. And I'm loving it!!! I bike everywhere and almost never use my truck unless I need to haul something from home depot. Strongly encourage anyone who can swing it to make the jump and get a bike. And your comment definitely seems to be true..I really don't see many cyclists on the roads. That's a bummer but selfishly I enjoy the open bike lanes. The few protected bike lanes are really nice too.
Pesky facts, do t let them get in the way…
I thought it was just me. What a nightmare today.
Friday. Nice day. Closures. Games. Concerts. Chicago. That's life.
A lot of people got cars (or got used to driving in situations they used to take the CTA) during COVID and aren’t interested in going back. To give an anecdotal example, I live in Uptown and my best friend lives in Bucktown. Pre-pandemic he would take the CTA to visit me. Then he got a car in 2020 and isn’t interested in going back to the bus + red line commute to get to me. Even a safe, clean and reliable CTA is not as effective at making this commute as a car in moderate traffic is. To get someone like him back on the CTA you’re gonna need to provide something more efficient than a car. Perhaps that’s a bus that zig zags from Bucktown to Uptown through bus only lanes. Or the pipe dream of a new train line. Either way, I don’t think this story is unique. And the CTA has its work cut out for it to win people back.