I made the mistake of riding the L (or El, if you prefer), Chicago's elevated train system today to see a play downtown (August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone at the Goodman Theatre). Now I haven't ridden the L downtown in quite some time. I used to be a daily rider during the pre-Covid days when I traveled to and from my day job, but not so much after the work from home thing came to be the norm. But I caught the L today and it wasn't great! I barely made it to the play on time despite leaving home 1.5 hours before the play started. I had to wait for a purple line train, then the red line crawled towards the loop. Let me just say that I hate the red line with a passion. It's slow, it stinks of cigarillos or whatever someone chose to smoke in the car before departing, and it's often filled with the homeless and/or other deranged folks. Someone on Datalounge called Chicago's red line a "rolling insane aslymn." That person spoke the truth!
As someone who is normally a huge advocate of public transit, lately I've found myself preferring not to take it. If I have to go downtown to the office, I prefer the Metra transit train. It's cleaner, it's faster, and the clientelle is better. It's worth the extra money to ride with no bums sleeping across multiple seats, no beggars going from car to car, and no eau du cigarillo wafting through the air. If the time comes that I have to reacquaint myself with the L to get to and from work, I'm going to have to work through that transition. Maybe my next job will be one in the suburbs that I can drive to!
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