apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Way to decrease my property value even more. Thanks a lot.

ooohh thats's what some of the older Virginia Railway Express cars look like. They're my favorite.

Ah, the Metra. These particular trains are made by Nippon Sharyo, who make the Shinkansen (bullet trains) in Japan.

Too bad they're not as fast as the Shinkansen, however!

wow that train looks clean, what wrong with it?

agreed 100%. also wish Chicago had a crosstown line...sigh.

If you only moved a mile, why didn't you just walk to the train? A 15-20 minute (extra) walk every day would improve your fitness. I used to live somewhere with a walk like that; there was a bus but it only ran 3 times an hour and was so unreliable you may as well ignore it. So I walked every time except in completely extreme weather (5x in a year) and it was fine.

A friend of mine lives in NWT Canada and walks 40 mins to work even in winter, so the weather can't be the only reason.

Agree with walking over the bus - at least in NYC, it is almost always the faster option and definitely more reliable.

in defense of sarahc, walking 20 min in most of the days of chicago's winter is pretty much unbearable. especially those days when it's UNDER ZERO.

I often find that the neighborhoods closest to work (obviously generalizing here) are the "busiest" which for some people is great and for others can be frustrating. On the other hand, waiting for the bus can be frustrating. I scratch my head when I think about all the people living in the "easy access" neighborhoods who drive anyways and then battle and dish out for parking.

I actually bike to the metra, even though the cta is closer, and it's cut my commute in half. I don't know if that's an option for you, but I know a lot of people who do that, rather than try and catch buses to trains.

This has always been my #1 priority when searching for an apartment. I usually bike commute, but it's important to me to have transit as a back up in case of injury, illness, a mechanical issue, or exhaustion/laziness.

I consider myself lucky to live in an inner-ring 'burb that has CTA, Metra, and Pace. A Pace bus stops just down the block, CTA is a half-mile away, and Metra is just under a mile.

I also have a paid-for car, so I guess I'm pretty "free" as far as having many transportation options.

I haven't got a car, so this is always a priority to me. Actually, the only reason I got my current apartment is that I was the only person without a car - parking tickets is the main reason people move out of my building.

i live in the western suburbs of chicago, and not only do i have to live close to a metra station to get to work in the city, but due to the near impossibility of getting a parking pass at the train stations around here, i also have to live near a bus route that serves metra commuters. biking might work in the summer, but chicago winters are brutal and last about half the year, so it's not an ideal solution. i've been browsing apartments lately and proximity to public transit is definitely important, as driving to the loop every day is, to me, unthinkable.

Here here!! I pay more to live 2 blocks from the subway but I couldn't handle the hour n half commute to work any longer. I was always cold or wet from the weather and standing outside waiting for a bus not to mention I could be doing other things with the 3 hours I spent commuting!

Trust me - accessibility to transit makes a HUGE difference. And remember what you put out in the world is what you get back. So if the situation is making you cranky and less than hospitable, think of what'll come back to you 10-fold.

*end rant*

I'm in the FAAAR north 'burbs (practically WI) & I have to drive everywhere. While my commute to work is just under 1/2 hr, in light traffic, I'm considering a move to Evanston. My commute would be longer, but by train instead of driving. As it is now, getting anywhere - coffee shop, gas station, grocery, is at least a half-hour round trip & that feels rather isolating.

As a Chicago area resident, mobility means this to me: somewhat tolerable distance to downtown as well as an airport if driving (I now live in the burbs), easy access to public transportation and easy access to grocery stores, etc. Perhaps if I lived in Southern California, walking or biking a mile to a train station would be no big deal, but as others have said, when you live in Chicago where the winter lasts half the year, that is really not an option. I do live in a burb now that gives me all those mobility options I mentioned above and I really appreciate it.

Chicago used to have a massive streetcar network, West Ridge would be a prime example of an area that was well served by it, but is now massively underserved, as are a lot of major north side, high density areas (by rail transit, I mean).

I freaking love Metra. Though I haven't been a rider for about a year, I used to take the RP line daily. We're currently looking to purchase a home in Lincoln Park which is very close to the Armitage station (meaning the townhome farthest back sits on the alley where the el tracks are), and I don't want to take the CTA, I want Metra!!

That's interesting, dn - I currently live in West Ridge and the closest rail transit is the Lincoln Square CTA station or the Rogers Park metra, both a couple miles away. It would be so great if it was within walking distance.