[aaron38]

Adventures in public transit (I'm out of practice).

My son and I went to da Bears yesterday for his first game at Soldier Field, and he wanted to take the trains since he's never ridden the El. I had it all planned out but it was still a mess.

Metra ride was fine until Ogilvie. My plan was to walk to Clinton to take the Green Line, so we sat at the back of the train to be farthest north, and drop down the stairs to Randolph or Washington. But as we (and plenty of other people) found out, the doors at the bottom are all locked on Sunday because of "the French Market". Excuse me? How is that allowed?
So we had to walk all the way down to Madison and then back up to Clinton. Makes no sense at all, and caused a lot of unnecessary congestion in Ogilvie.

Next, Ventra cards. The website said families can share cards. I loaded two one-day passes, but cards can't double swipe (18 minute delay). So an 8 year old needs his own Ventra card? Ridiculous. I'll just buy single ride passes from now on. Ventra is overly complicated.

Then while waiting on the platform at Clinton, the PA announced that "Green/Orange trains are stopped at Roosevelt due to police activity". It wasn't clear how far Green trains would proceed or if we would get stuck. So we and some other Bears fans on the train got off at State/Lake and dropped down into the Red Line. My son loved that part because he'd never been in a subway before. When we got to Roosevelt, there wasn't any police activity, so I don't know what was going on.

After the game the Red Line station was packed. (Kid wanted to ride the subway again, so there went my Green Line plan) We couldn't squeeze onto a train and had to wait for the next one. But the next train was delayed so we waited 20 minutes. Must have been a glitch, next year we will wait longer and let the crowd thin out. Because there were more trains right behind ours.

Finally, I was expecting the Red Line to stop at State/Lake, so when we got to just "Lake" I didn't get off. So we got a free ride to Grand and had to go back. My son got more subway time so he loved it, I felt like a dumb tourist.

And then when we were walking south from Clinton it started pouring, so having those stairs open would have been real nice as we ran to Madison.

Overall it was a good experience, glitches happen. But the Metra stairs to Randolph/Washington being closed is inexcusable. Especially on game days if public transit is supposed to be preferred over driving.

Edit: I called Metra to ask about the stairs, and I was told that since Metra doesn't own the building they don't control whether those doors are locked or not. I feel this needs attention. Does anyone know who I should talk to at Citi Group, or whoever currently owns the building?