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Without the luxury of a twelve minute Metra train ride like last summer, I’ve learned a few things about the Chicago Transit Authority.

Leapfrogging Can Be Legitimate
Since moving to Chicago, everyone I know, myself included, has griped about the CTA. Service is not frequent enough, nothing is on schedule, and it just takes too damn long to get anywhere. The biggest complaint I’ve heard is that buses travel in packs. I won’t disagree that this can be extremely annoying. In most cases, bus routes are sparsely populated. At each stop along the way, just a few people are looking to get on; the first bus in a pack will do all of the passenger pick-ups (to the point that people are standing on top of each other) while the trailing bus(es) tag along mostly empty. In the last week, however, I’ve realized that this is not a universal phenomenon. The 135 I take to and from work has a humongous rush hour ridership. This morning, four buses (three extra-long articulated, one regular) all pulled up to my stop together. It was seriously like having an El train pull up a half block away from my apartment. This is something I would have complained about a month ago. Today, it is something that I praise; all of the roughly 50 people at my stop distributed themselves between the buses extremely quickly, then the little de facto train got onto Lake Shore Drive to make the short trek to downtown. Two things make this pack formation legitimate: there are more than twenty people looking to get on the bus at each stop, and the stops all have plenty of curb frontage for several buses to line up. With these conditions in place, it becomes extremely efficient for buses to travel together.

Chicago’s Subterranean Streets are Incredible
After the 135 takes the S-curve in front of the Drake, Lake Shore Drive grinds to a halt as traffic lights limit flow through the central business district. Luckily for me, there is a remedy to this problem: Chicago’s multi-level streets.

A view of the three levels of Wacker Drive

Click for a map of Chicago’s multilevel streets

Before congestion has the potential to add 20 minutes to my bus ride, the 135 ducks to Lower Lake Shore Drive, crosses the river a level under gridlocked traffic, and gets onto Lower Wacker Drive. A couple blocks later, it emerges from the depths of Gotham and the downtown stops begin. Nice!

There is a Seating(/Standing) Hierarchy
Inspired by this post at Meish.org, I’ve come up with a hierarchy of preferred positions on the standard, 60 foot long articulated buses that run most frequently on my bus route.

The blue boxes indicate doors, and the white box at the bottom left is the driver. Red, yellow, and green boxes with no outline are seating positions; with outlines are standing positions. Here are the rankings.

1) My favorite seats. They are far enough back that there is less need to shift around as the bus fills up. My favorite feature, however, is that these seats face towards the center of the bus and are located over the middle set of wheel-wells. The seats are thus an extra foot higher from the floor, giving better views out the opposite window and of other people on the bus.

2) The seats behind the articulation/accordion section of the bus are my next-favorites. Again, they are farther away from the onslaught of new passengers, and they are very close to the exit door.

3) If this standing position is available, I will actually take it over many seats. It is right next to the exit door, and has a horizontal metal bar between it and the doors that provides for great leaning. I don’t have to hold on to a hand-rail if I can stand here, which makes reading a magazine a hell of a lot easier.

4) Most other seats are equally acceptable to me after this point, except for the seats that are actually situated in the articulation. More on that in 6.

5) The other place I prefer to stand is next to the rear exit door. Advantages: easy exit, easy access to some great seats, and less people pushing to get onto the bus around you; however, there is nothing to lean on so reading becomes more difficult.

6) The seats in the accordion section are my least favorite seats on the bus, as they have no windows. Two sets of two seats face the center of the bus in this position, and the standing space between these opposing chairs is narrower because the seats cannot be placed all the way against the wall; instead, they are inset from the edges somewhat so the bus can bend. Sitting here means a LOT of people are going to kick you and brush your knees walking by. I also gave the standing position directly in front of these seats a 6 simply because it is near my favorite seats.

7) The rest of the standing zones basically suck. In the front of the bus, you’re constantly being pushed towards the back of the bus; in the articulated zone you must constantly deal with the narrowness of the standing area, not to mention the relative motion of the floor between the front and back section; in the back of the bus, the floor is higher so your eye level is above the windows, and you have to push to get to an exit. The bus ride from any of these positions feels about twice as long.

I imagine this could be a continuing series as I spend 5 days a week for the next couple months riding the bus. Stay tuned.