Public Transportation Knowledge (Chicago, Lincoln: transplants, 2013, construction)

[Michael Scott]

Hi guys,

I'm sure some of the frequent posters kinda know my story already, I'm a college student soon graduating and planning to make the move to Chicago from the state known as Death's Waiting Room.

I took a trip to Chicago last December, and while I got around just fine, it was only cause I had my face buried in my iPhone and Google Maps any time I had to go somewhere. One thing I noticed is the suggested route would change when certain time would pass. I.e., if you say you want to go to the corner of X Street and Y Street, at first it would say take Bus XX heading towards Y, then if like 10 minutes passed and I didn't get on that Bus, it would then tell me something completely different, etc. I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense lol.

What I'm asking is, is this something people catch on to rather quickly, just knowing, ok if I wanna go to this place, the quickest route is red line towards Howard then jump on either Bus XX or Bus YY, depending on which is there first, etc.? Or is it more like people know their common daily commutes or places they frequent, and then for most everything else they rely on navigation?

[chet everett]

Google uses the "published time" to make suggestions about mass transit. Most folk tend to rely on whatever routine that works for them unless there are circumstance to avoid -- storms , traffic , sports events are typical...

[JBVirtuoso]

You'll probably figure out most of your transit needs within a week of moving here, and after a month, you should have it down to a science. Google tends to suggest whatever it perceives will be fastest at that precise moment. If the bus won't arrive for, say, 18 minutes, it's going to suggest a better route if one exists. It's usually fairly accurate, but it can give you some wacky directions sometimes. After living here for several years, I rarely ever use Google Transit. I only use it if I'm going somewhere far away, to areas that have spotty transit. When I first moved here, I used it until I had a good understanding of how the system worked. For the routes I use, I've found it easier to memorize schedules than to rely on spotty internet. There are some buses that only run every 30 minutes, so unless you've got that schedule memorized, you're likely to get stuck waiting a long time for the bus or setting off on that 2-mile walk out of impatience.

[chirack]

Google transit is a bit worse than the old RTA system in terms of giving options. People who use transit know which buses and routes tend to run at what times and you can look them up directly at the CTA website as well as use the CTA bus tracker to see when the next bus will arrive. The trouble with google transit is that it sort of lacks “common sense” and gives routes that work, but may not be the best way to get somewhere. It is sort of like GPS, where it can give you the shortest route but does not take in to consideration traffic or construction. Google transit say can give you directions that allow you to arrive somewhere at 6:00 but say if you had said 6:05 you could get another set of directions that perhaps would put you closer to your destination and if you need to be somewhere by 6:30 arriving at 6:05 rather than 6:00 could be a reasonable trade.

[ToriaT]

Instead of being glued to your phone which still can be helpful try to think conceptually of the city and the lay of the land. Look at transit maps on line on a full screen and see basically how the city is laid out transit wise. You have the L or subway lines going north, northwest, west and south basically. Get to know those lines, the blue line, the red line, etc. Then you have major streets with buses running on them. Most but not all of these routes are north south or east west. Get to know which are the very few diagonal streets that matter in the big picture...Lincoln Ave, Milwaukee Ave, Elston Ave. Know where Clark St. goes, where Broadway comes off. Then understand the lakefront bus lines such as the express buses that go up and down the inner and outer drive. Figure out downtown and how the "loop" works. Then look into the south side if you are going down there. Most new transplants but not all focus on the north side. Remember that some L lines and buses run 24/7 and some do not. Owl service are the ones running at any hour. Express buses have a limited run and may have different routes than similar buses during other parts of the day. Learn how to hail a cab and where they are likely to go and where they are hard to find. That is kind of it in a nutshell, now you will need the specifics. Buses that are helpful are things like the 151, 136, the Clark St. bus, Western Ave bus, Fullerton bus, North ave bus, Milw. Ave bus, Lincoln ave bus and the buses like the 146 and express buses.

P.S. My post is north side centric because that is what I know but there could be similar advice for the south side. Also know which lines and buses and places that might be too dangerous to even go on!!!! And you should not have your phone out on public transportation as you are a sitting target for a robbery.

[emathias]

If you are reasonably good at navigation in general, you should be able to pick things up fairly quickly. It's nothing like trying to internalize a map of Tokyo written only in Japanese would be.

I've lived in Chicago for most of the past 20 years and while I don't have the complete system memorized, I knew most of how to get around within a month of moving there. The trains should be very easy to get a feel for. Buses will take a bit longer, but most buses follow a pretty direct routings - it's not like some cities where buses meander all over the place. Obviously you'll pick up bus routes in your own area(s) faster, but there are some fairly predictable patterns to how buses are numbered, so once you get to know the system you'll be able to guess what a certain number might do even if you don't have access to a map or an app. It's not 100%, but you'll start to see patterns.

[Chi-town Native]

hello!

https://www.facebook.com/PeopleofCTA?ref=ts&fref=ts

[ToriaT]

Here is something else to consider. You can get a poster. Or just look at it.

Super Mario Bros. 3 Chicago Map

[marothisu]

Google's algorithm is all about optimization. So you missed the bus, what's the next best thing? The next of that bus might not come for a number of minutes, so something else is suggested in its place. There are a lot of variables though. You can choose when you want to arrive actually.

But yeah, it's normal. It's an optimization problem. It wants you to get from A to B ASAP and not necessarily tied to that bus.

[Golden Camel]

One thing you should be aware of: Google Transit is not aware of the Pace suburban bus system (route numbers 208 and up). So if your trip is to/from/between any suburbs, it will give you a crazy route through the city or tell you to just walk even though there might be a very convenient way to get there. Note that in the last service reduction, Pace took over operating some service on streets on the far northwest side and the far south side of the city.

You might want to try Hopstop or goroo for more complete regional transit information.