Driving/Transit/Cycling into the Loop (Chicago, Rockford: hotel, home, taxi)

[navsaria]

Good evening, all. I end up driving into the Loop a few times a year from Madison, Wisconsin. I'm usually doing fine on the NW Tollway until about O'Hare, and then the traffic backs up to the point where I spent two hours getting from Madison to O'Hare, but then 1.5 hours crawling into the loop. (I don't always have control over avoiding rush hour, which seems to be almost all hours these days.)

My usual pattern is to park once I'm at whichever hotel I'm staying at, and then not move the car again until I leave town. I'm usually there on business, so parking costs are covered.

I'm looking for advice along two possible lines:

1) Any suggestions on good routes which might avoid I-90 congestion between O'Hare and the Loop? I used to live in Champaign and traffic coming from the south was never this bad.

2) Alternately, I'm not opposed to doing a park-and-ride -- is there a convenient place to park and take the El or the Metra in? Inexpensive parking would be best (to offset the Metra/El cost). Obviously it would have to end up saving time, or at least be equivalent.

Finally, a bonus question: if I were to choose to drive part-way and then ride my bicycle into town, is there a place you recommend parking and then picking up a bike trail that would get me to the vicinity of the Loop? (Also to the vicinity of Elk Grove Village would be helpful.) I can easily ride about 50 miles, up to 75 isn't terrible but I'd prefer not to be completely exhausted. :-)

Thanks!

D

[Mr Downtown]

First, why not just take the Van Galder bus or Megabus from Madison and skip the driving altogether?

No real good alternatives to I-90 between O'Hare and the Loop, though Higgins to Milwaukee or Elston can be almost as fast and more interesting. Another thing to try is I-290 from the Woodfield area a little south and then into the Loop from the west. The travel time statistics (not the current data) at travelmidweststats.com can give you an informed view of when traffic eases and which route is usually faster.

Nearly all Metra stations have parking lots, so you could park as far out as Elgin or Woodstock and take a suburban train into town—though if you're staying at a Michigan Avenue hotel, you'll still have to take a bus or taxi there from the train station. CTA has a big facility that's hard to miss on I-90 at Cumberland. Some suburban stations may not permit overnight parking. A good one to try would be Arlington Park (at the racetrack).

There's no off-road bike trail from the O'Hare area into town, but the bike lanes on Elston give a good on-street route the whole way. You can see Chicago bike routes here. For the region, including Elk Grove Village, get the Chicagoland Bike Map from Active Transportation Alliance.

[AmoreLeo]

I'm not sure about alternate driving routes, but you could park at Cumberland and take the Blue Line into the Loop.

As for riding, I agree that Elston is the way to go. You can even take your bike on the Blue Line, ride the train to Montrose, and then ride a few blocks to get onto Elston. Once you're on it, stay on until you run into Milwaukee, then take Milwaukee straight (or, rather, diagonally!) down to a weird intersection at Halsted & Kinzie. Take Kinzie east only a few blocks and then swing right onto Clinton (before the train tracks). You can safely take Clinton down to any of the E-W streets and then turn east toward the lake to get into the Loop. Or park your bike in the West Loop and cool down a bit with a walk into the Loop!

I love riding my bike from the far North side into the city. It takes about 1-1.25 hours from Montrose.

[chet everett]

I agree with A.Leo's route(s) but doubt you'd be time ahead via bicycle. Occasionally I have seen strong cyclists get a block or two ahead of traffic, but with multiple stoplights, heavy truck and bus traffic, insane angles on some intersections the traffic is just too congested for even Eddy Merck caliber rider to make time...

Blue line park& ride might save some time, but not sure if the extended parking makes sense. Alternatively you could park at remote lots for O'Hare, but that ends legs to journey with "O'Hare circulator" back to El line and costs are not that low...

There really ought to be more options.

Originally Posted by AmoreLeo

I'm not sure about alternate driving routes, but you could park at Cumberland and take the Blue Line into the Loop.

As for riding, I agree that Elston is the way to go. You can even take your bike on the Blue Line, ride the train to Montrose, and then ride a few blocks to get onto Elston. Once you're on it, stay on until you run into Milwaukee, then take Milwaukee straight (or, rather, diagonally!) down to a weird intersection at Halsted & Kinzie. Take Kinzie east only a few blocks and then swing right onto Clinton (before the train tracks). You can safely take Clinton down to any of the E-W streets and then turn east toward the lake to get into the Loop. Or park your bike in the West Loop and cool down a bit with a walk into the Loop!

I love riding my bike from the far North side into the city. It takes about 1-1.25 hours from Montrose.

[MSchemist80]

You could ride 77 miles from Madison to Harvard, IL then take the UP-NW right into the loop. Those WI roads make for a nice bike ride and you don't have to worry about parking. You can take the bike on most nonrushhour or reverse commute trains.

[jdiddy]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I agree with A.Leo's route(s) but doubt you'd be time ahead via bicycle. Occasionally I have seen strong cyclists get a block or two ahead of traffic, but with multiple stoplights, heavy truck and bus traffic, insane angles on some intersections the traffic is just too congested for even Eddy Merck caliber rider to make time...

Blue line park& ride might save some time, but not sure if the extended parking makes sense. Alternatively you could park at remote lots for O'Hare, but that ends legs to journey with "O'Hare circulator" back to El line and costs are not that low...

There really ought to be more options.

I bike to work nearly every day, but have driven in twice. It typically takes me 35 min to get from Addison/Elston to the loop, which is faster than train or car in rush hour.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by jdiddy

I bike to work nearly every day, but have driven in twice. It typically takes me 35 min to get from Addison/Elston to the loop, which is faster than train or car in rush hour.

Addison and Elston is about 6-7 miles from the Loop, about halfway from where Elston forks off of Milwaukee Ave, about 2-3 miles from the big cumberland lot...

[SJaye]

If your goal is to make up time, than bicycling is probably not the way to go, but if you like to bicycle, there are some good routes.

I-90 usually starts to back up near O'Hare. The problem is, that before the I-294/190 OHare interchanges, the last place to exit Eastbound I-90 is Arlington Heights Rd. There are no exits in between (from that direction). So, to avoid this traffic, you would have to get off there. To get to the Loop fastest, it would probably be best to go North on Arlington Heights Rd. to the Arlington Heights METRA, which will take you downtown faster than the blue line. However, it runs less frequently on weekends, and there are no runs later than 12:30 AM, so if you need something with more frequent service, the blue line would work, all you have to do is take Arlington Heights Rd. to Higgins to River Rd. and park in Rosemont.

I-290 can sometimes be faster, and the good news is that if you start going east on 290 and it does get jammed up, you could always exit at Harlem and take the Green line from Oak Park (warning, it runs through the ghetto on the way).

For bicycling from the Elk Grove area, unfortunately, that part of the suburbs is not that bike friendly. The first place I would feel confident bicycling from would be Park Ridge, where taking Taloctt to Sayre to Higgins to Milwaukee is a decent route, probably would take about an hour.

[cubssoxfan]

Last Sunday, I got off I-90 in Rockford at BR20, took it tto Belvidere, then took backroads to Rte 14 in Woodstock and was home in Arlington Heights in just under 1.5 hours. In ideal traffic, it only took 20 minutes longer. Now doing it during rush hour would take a little longer, but not too much since you would be going opposite the rush hour traffic.

[navsaria]

A belated thank you to everyone who contributed -- these are useful suggestions. I did try the I-290 route in on my last journey in, and it was apparently much better than if I had stayed on I-90 the whole way. I'll have to keep that one in mind.

As for biking, it appears that there are no real "farmland-to-Loop" off-street bike paths, unfortunately. I liked the one suggestion of biking to Harvard and taking Metra in, but I have to say that I wasn't impressed with Metra's frequency or how long it took from those farthest points.

To those who asked about saving time -- no, I am under no illusions that biking would save time, but it just feels like if I'm going to sit in traffic, I might as well just be on a bicycle on a more pleasant route. :-) Having said that, my vision of there being a secret bike path into the core is perhaps not a reality. I do see that I could theoretically come down east of Rockford and then there are some trail options, but they are not a straight-line option. I might be better off coming along the North Shore and then biking from somewhere there.

Elk Grove Village seems like a lost cause to get to via bike, but then again, it's not all that difficult to drive to. Just hoping for some other option since I go there for business periodically. Looking at Google Maps, it does route out a few options...maybe I should try it as a "park somewhere closer in and bike the last stretch" system. Any recommendations of somewhere easy (and preferably free) that I can park in Elgin? Are those stretches of Higgins Road they suggest in Hoffman Estates reasonable to bike on?

Thanks again!