Chicago Transportation Tips by Dabs

'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Updated 4/17/07

Chicago offers a daily free trolley service in the summer months, operations run from Memorial Day (last Monday in May) to Labor day (1st Monday in Sept.)

There has been weekend service in past years from September-December and daily service during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays

The blue line running from Navy Pier to State Street and back runs every day even in the winter, check out the Navy Pier website for current information

No ticket or reservation needed, board at the marked trolley stops.

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Website: http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Transportation/trolleys/

'Mode': TO
Category: Subway/Metro
Getting TO/AROUND: If you are traveling from O' Hare to downtown the cheapest and often quickest way is to take the Blue Line el also known as the CTA. It's $2.00 per person, $1.75 if you have a Chicago Card), no extra charge for luggage. Or if you plan on using the el and buses a lot in Chicago you can get a visitor pass (1, 2, 3 or 5 days) and the ride from O'Hare is included. The trip takes about 45 minutes to downtown Chicago.

The CTA station is located at the lowest level of the Main Parking Garage next to elevator center 4. You should be able to follow the signs that look like a subway car. But don't get on the remote parking train by mistake.

Clark/Lake is the most central stop, you can walk to some loop hotels or take a cab from there to the Mag Mile or River North, the cab fare should be less than $5 to most hotels. Or you can transfer to the red line at Washington and take it to Grand or Chicago which will get you closer to the Mag Mile hotels. If you are staying in the south loop you can get off at Washington or Monroe on the blue line without transferring.

The blue line el is a regular commuter train, like the tube in London, so there isn't extra room for luggage like on some airport trains. But O'Hare is the first stop on the line and patrons are used to seeing folks with luggage so as long as you can manage your luggage on and off the train, you should be fine.

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Website: http://www.transitchicago.com/

'Mode': TO
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: If you have a lot of luggage or prefer not to take public transportation, there are several other options for getting to and from O'Hare.

Taxi-costs about $35-40 each way and take you directly to your hotel. You can catch taxis in front of every terminal, first come, first serve.

Continental Airport Express-cost is $25 each way, $46 round trip if you book online. The cost goes down if you have more people, check the website for more info and current pricing. It sounds like they take you directly to your hotel but you may have to share and the trip might be longer than with a taxi.

Rental car-unless you are traveling a lot to areas outside of Chicago, rethink renting a car. Public transportation, walking and taxis in Chicago should be adequate for your stay.

For additional options see the website listed below.

Historical note-Travelers to O'Hare will notice that their luggage tags read ORD. Originally O'Hare was called Orchard Field, it was renamed in 1949 for Butch O'Hare, a World War II fighter pilot from Chicago who was a war hero. If you'd like to read more about Butch O'Hare, here's a good link:
http://www.ohare.com/ohare/about/about_butch.shtm

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Website: http://www.flychicago.com/ohare/groundtransohare/ground.shtm

'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Navigating Chicago is a little easier if you know the following things:

1) Chicago was built on a grid system, almost all of the streets in Chicago run straight east/west or straight north/south. The notable exceptions are Lincoln, Clybourn and Clark (only past North Avenue)

2) 8 blocks=mile

3) The "zero line" is the intersection of State (north/south street) and Madison (east/west street) in the heart of the Loop.

Addresses to the east of State increase with E. addresses, to the west they increase with W. addresses.

Addresses to the north of Madison increase with N. addresses, addresses to the south of Madison increase with S. addresses.

4) Wacker Drive consists of upper and lower Wacker. Lower is just for driving and escaping the congested downtown traffic. The entrances to Lower Wacker are not very well marked.

5) Wacker Drive is the only street I can think of in Chicago that has addresses that are E., W., N. and S. as it curves along with the Chicago River. Be careful if you are trying to find an address on Wacker.

6) If you see a brown street sign instead of a green one, these are honorary street names, honoring notable Chicagoans, which you won't find on a map.

7) If you are driving, watch out for one way streets. There are lots of them, especially in the Loop.

8) Street names aren't as easy as NYC which is almost all numbered (Manhattan anyways) but there are some east-west streets that are lumped together:

The President streets in the loop in chronological order heading south-Washington, (Adams the elder and Jefferson are skipped) Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Polk. I don't know why John Tyler was skipped and I read that Washington and Monroe St. were named after counties and not Presidents...

The Great Lake Streets in River North going south-Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario (the 5th Great Lake, Michigan, runs north-south)

The tree streets-between Division (1200 North) and Chicago (800 North) along the Mag Mile there is Elm, Cedar, Maple, Oak, Locust, and Chestnut

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'Mode': TO
Category: Car/Motor Home
Getting TO/AROUND: If you are heading into/out of Chicago via the Indiana Toll Road, you will spend a portion of your trip on the Chicago Skyway. As the price keeps rising and rising and rising, I'm less inclined to use this to get to and from home to Chicago than Highway 41 which eventually merges into Lake Shore Drive. If I'm not in a real hurry, I almost always avoid the Skyway now.

If you do drive it, watch out for the ever present Chicago Police Department writing tickets to speeders, it is practically guaranteed that you will see one during your trip. They lurk on the on ramps and at the bottom of hills so you'd be advised not to go too fast.

And if you are unlucky enough to be continuing on to the Indiana Toll Road, you will get hit within a few miles with yet another 50 cent toll.

In 2004, the City of Chicago agreed to sell the Skyway and the toll, which had been $2 since 1993 rose to $2.50 and in 2008 rose to $3 and will likely continue to rise as the agreement allows for a series of increases up to $5 by 2017. You can use your Illinois I Pass, Indiana I Zoom or the EZ Pass (used in northeast US states) to pay the toll on the Skyway but there is no discount over cash like there is on the Indiana and Illinois toll roads. At least you avoid the long cash lines!

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Car/Motor Home
Getting TO/AROUND: If you are listening to traffic reports while driving through Chicago, in addition to the highway number, sections of these highways in and around Chicago have different names that they are more commonly known by

Kennedy-highway 90/94 West runs north from downtown Chicago, at the Junction the Kennedy (90) keeps going northwest towards O'Hare and the Northwest suburbs, renamed after President John F. Kennedy after his assasination in 1963

Edens Expressway-highway 94 West runs north from the Kennedy Junction to the north suburbs, named for William Edens, head of the Illinois Highway Improvement Association, who ironically never owned or drove a car.

Dan Ryan-highway 90/94 East actually runs south from downtown, splits into the Bishop Ford (94) and the Chicago Skyway (90), named for Daniel B. Ryan, president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners

Bishop Ford-highway 94 runs east from the Dan Ryan into Indiana, formerly named the Calumet Expressway, renamed in 1996 honor of the late Bishop Louis Henry Ford who had a church nearby.

Eisenhower-highway 290, runs west from downtown Chicago to the western suburbs, named after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, very appropriate as he was a major force in the development of interstate highways (although 290 isn't an interstate highway as it just runs through Illinois)

Stevenson-highway 55, runs south from Chicago towards St. Louis, named after Illinois governor and presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson

If you're a bigger geek than me and want more info, everything you could possibly want to know about the highways can be found at the website below.

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Website: http://chicagobase.lib.uic.edu/website/Atlas%20Overview/atlas_4.htm

'Mode': AROUND
Category: Car/Motor Home
Getting TO/AROUND: If you are driving north out of Chicago (outbound) or south into Chicago (inbound) on the Kennedy watch for the signs saying the Express lanes are open. Almost always, these lanes move faster than the local lanes.

Don't use them if you need to exit before you can get out of them, there's one place you can exit in the middle and then again at the end.

The lanes are reversible and change direction depending on which way the traffic is usually heaviest. The schedule,which can be overruled by IDOT, is 1 am to 11:30 am inbound and 1 pm to 11 pm outbound on Sunday-Friday. On Saturdays the express lanes are switched from outbound to inbound sometime between 1:30 pm and 5 pm and back to outbound sometime between 5 pm and 8 pm.

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'Mode': AROUND
Category: Other
Getting TO/AROUND: Updated 2/8/07

Although most tourists to Chicago will never experience this subterranean part of the city, for Chicagoland commuters it is invaluable. That is when all of it is actually open! For several years the section under Wabash was closed while the block was under construction, it finally reopened and now the section under Block 37 between State and Dearborn is closed.

One section of the Pedway runs from the train stations on the corner of Randolph and Michigan near the Cultural Center to City Hall. From the Cultural Center you can get to the Macy's on State, go outside, walk one block and then go back down the stairs in Daley Plaza which takes you to at City Hall which is a building worth taking a look at the interior.

There are connecting passageways that take you even further, go to the north side of City Hall and find the stairs going down and you can cross the street to the State of Illinois Building (Thompson Center).

There is another section that goes south to the Chase Bank Building and another section that goes north from the corner of Randolph & Michigan that I have never explored.

Oddly the City of Chicago doesn't seem to have an online map anywhere but the attached website has one

And there are a couple of articles on the Chicago blog gapersblock

http://www.gapersblock.com/detour/subterranean_city_a_tour_of_chicagos_pedway_part_1/

http://www.gapersblock.com/detour/subterranean_city_a_tour_of_chicagos_pedway_part_two/

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Website: http://www.spiegl.org/pedway/pedway.html

'Mode': AROUND
Category: Bus
Getting TO/AROUND: In the Chicago Tribune today:

the CTA will offer free weekend bus service to tourist attractions on the Near South and Southwest Sides from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The Chinatown/Pilsen shuttle will run to the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, the Prairie Avenue Historic District and the Sunday Maxwell Street Market. It replaces city trolleys. Service will operate every 20 minutes from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

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'Mode': TO
Category: Airplane
Getting TO/AROUND: Updated 10/1/06

Midway Airport, the world's busiest airport in the 1930s, is now Chicago's 2nd busiest airport, O'Hare being the busiest and handling most of the international flights. The name was changed from the Chicago Municipal Airport to Midway in 1949 in honor of the Battle of Midway.

Flights arriving here are primarily domestic, smaller, no frill airlines like Southwest, ATA, AirTran, etc. although some international flights do go through Midway.

The airport is easier to navigate than O' Hare and transportation to Chicago via the CTA Orange line (el) is within walking distance of the terminals.

Midway is slightly closer to downtown than O' Hare, the transit website estimates a trip of 30 minutes by el compared with 40 for O' Hare.

If you haven't been through Midway in awhile, Midway underwent a major renovation of it's terminals and parking facilities a few years ago and is a much nicer airport to travel through. There's a pretty good food court including Greek, sandwiches, pizza and recently I grabbed a corned beef sandwich from Manny's before boarding a flight.

If you are parking and flying, Midway has several economy lots off 55th Street for $12 per day (have to take a shuttle bus to the terminal) or if you go to 59th just east of Cicero there's a $9 lot that you can walk from but they only take cash. Parking in the garage next to the terminal is $25 per day.

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Website: http://www.flychicago.com/