#7 Shipman: who do we bitch to? Well, start with the idiots who designed suburbia without sidewalks and no grid, and a three mile drive to the nearest grocery store. Give a piece of your mind to the ninnies and NIMBYs who build condos within 15 feet of an active railroad line and scream when the state talks about building a rail corridor to improve intercity travel. Then there are the SUV bullies who just about climb up your tailpipe and nearly flip your minivan over with their afterblast; they gobble up twice as much gas as my husband's dinosaur Aerostar does, as he drives 5 miles to the nearest park-and-ride. Try waiting for a bus along the main traffic arteries; you can't breathe from gas fumes. We're a nation of wastrels who didn't learn anything from the Arab Oil Embargo 30 years ago.
I grew up near Chicago, and I miss the El and the suburban bus system, the one Chicago amenity my beautiful city up north lacks (besides the museum corridor on the lakefront--nobody can copy that). I was riding the El to Wrigley and Grant Park and the Loop, where I'd meet my mom after work, when I was 13. The bus lines in my neatly laid out grid suburb were very efficient. A good commuter rail system, or at least a bus from the suburbs to the bus hub, would make a real difference in gas consumption and quality of life. But where I live, anybody who suggests light rail is written off as a dreamy-eyed liberal.
I'm sure a number of Chicagoans reading this will come back with horror stories of the bad old days of Milton Pikarsky and other incompetent First Daley Regime hacks, or some more recent headaches that have happened since I left the Chica-glow for a place where I can actually see the stars at night. But frankly, the beter we plan public transportation so that people can actually use it, the better off we'd all be. |