What’s good for Hyde Park sticks it to South Chicago, while the masses yawn!

In my mind, I already can hear the lone voice or two out of the South Chicago and South Shore neighborhoods along the lakefront who will express furious anger at the thought of the limited access to public transit they already have being cut even further.

Metra may make it easier to get to Hyde Park from Randolph and Michigan at the expense of other parts of the South Side. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

The rant will be vociferous. It will be sincere in its emotion. And I also don’t doubt that the masses, particularly those involved with mass transit in the Chicago area, will care less.

I’M REFERRING TO the proposal being put forth by the Metra commuter railroad system that takes people from all across the metropolitan area into downtown Chicago to alter the set-up of the Metra Electric line, which goes from Millennium Station at Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue south to University Park, with branches that break off and take people both to Blue Island and also to the aforementioned South Side neighborhoods.

According to Metra officials, their intent is to boost the number of trains on the line that pass through the Hyde Park neighborhood. Under the current set-up, once the morning rush hour is over, trains go through at the rate of one per hour – the same as through the rest of the south suburbs on the line.

But because Chicago Transit Authority “el” service doesn’t stretch into Hyde Park, people living there rely on the Metra for contact with the rest of the world. Metra officials say they’d like to have trains stopping in Hyde Park stations (every two blocks from 51^st to 59^th streets) every 20 minutes.

That’s nice for them. I think that’s great. Particularly since I often use the Metra Electric (I’m old enough to remember when the line was a part of the Illinois Central railroad, and there are many old-timers who still think of it as the “IC line”) to get to Hyde Park, and it would be nice if trains ran more frequently.

BUT I ALSO was born in the South Chicago neighborhood, and know that CTA trains don’t go anywhere near the neighborhood. Even the number of bus routes are limited.

A trip downtown on the Number 30 South Chicago bus route that eventually puts you on a Red Line train at 69^th Street is slow, makes multiple stops and can take over an hour each way to make the commute.

It’s part of the reason activists in this area are pushing for the CTA to extend the Red Line train south to 130^th Street, which would make it possible to use other bus routes to catch the “el.”

 

UChgo influence makes Hyde Park transit a priority

But just at a time when CTA officials are moving forward with that long-rumored project, Metra now wants to come in and reduce the service the area already had.

NOW I’LL ADMIT a bias here. I was born in the South Chicago neighborhood, and remember as a kid visiting my grandmother who lived just one block from the 91^st Street station that is the end of the South Chicago line.

I know Metra officials are arguing that the specific train lines they’re talking about cutting so as to shift the service to benefit Hyde Park have fewer than 10 passengers, and sometimes only one or two.

But I’d argue that it’s because Metra in recent decades has offered such a scant service to the area that local residents have come to not expect it as an option when they need to get from place to place.

Older area residents recall the days when trains ran regularly on the South Chicago branch – in fact, as frequently as the every 20 minutes that officials are talking about creating for Hyde Park! I’m sure area use would increase if service were available.

YET THAT ALSO requires some ambition and a desire to actually provide a product. Whereas in the past, Metra has clearly considered getting people from suburban locations into downtown Chicago as its priority – with the stops that Metra trains make within the city considered as a thing of the past.

You'll need a car to get to area around 95th St. bridge

So yes, Metra officials deserve some praise for wanting to bolster Hyde Park service – possibly by summer’s end.

Yet here’s hoping that residents of South Chicago and the surrounding neighborhoods that would rely on Metra service if it were more frequent and reliable can get their voices up loud enough where they’re heard over the din of public anger on so many issues.

Otherwise, it will be too easy for Metra officials to dismiss them as insignificant; leaving a sizable part of Chicago further isolated from the rest of the city.

  -30-

Grateful to be cooped up indoors (for a change) on this messiest of New Year’s

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we’ve got no place to go

Let it snow? Let it snow! Let it snow!                                    

  -0-

Whodathunk the New Year holiday season would have its own song. Even if it’s technically an appropriation of a Christmas holiday song.

My guide for coping with winter storm Hercules

For that first line from “Let it snow” was what came to my mind when I looked out the window to see the snowfall that has been falling off-and-on since Tuesday night.

AND I AM fortunate to be in a part of the Chicago metropolitan area that didn’t get hit with nearly a foot of snow. It has been just a couple of inches for me.

Reading and seeing the news reports of nearly a foot of snow in some parts of metro Chicago (which technically is a part of the “winter storm Hercules” that is sweeping itself this week across the northern part of the nation) made me feel grateful.

As was the fact that I am reduced these days to sporadic employment – often done from home.

I didn’t have to endure the commute to work that likely would have made me ridiculously late, and would have caused me to have to endure a rant from some boss who would want to blame everybody around him for inclement weather.

FOR THOSE OF you who had to put up with someone so nonsensical, I feel for you.

I wish I could say I spent the day watching this...

Although to be technical, I didn’t spend my Thursday cuddled up in front of a fire. Part of the day I spent in front of a laptop computer grinding out copy – including this very commentary you’re reading now.

I did have a television going for part of the day, tuned part of the day to The Weather Channel – where Stephanie Abrams, among others, convinced me that I was not alone in coping with heavy snowfall that will turn by week’s end to sub-zero-degree temperatures.

... instead of this

I also must confess to watching portions of a pair of cheesy films – “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Detroit Rock City,” which not only make me wish it were possible to buy back that portion of time in my life so I could use it more wisely but also makes me wonder if actors Kathleen Turner and Edward Furlong wish they could somehow erase those films from being a drag on their careers.

ALTHOUGH IF IT turns out that watching a part of two bad films was the low part of my Thursday, then I shouldn’t complain. It wasn’t any worse than the guy who was doing an awful “Harry Caray” impersonation on MLB-TV.

Besides, I’m sure there are people out there who had miserable days; problems aggravated all the more by the inclement weather.

I was fortunate enough to be able to use a miserable day to add to a general tone of relaxation in the final days before we all have to get back to work following New Year’s Day. And the leftover ham and potato salad was actually an enjoyable weather shut-in meal.

Which because the holiday came near the beginning of a week allows the most unadventurous of us to turn Christmas and New Year’s into a nearly two-week-long period of slothness.

Leftover ham and potato salad; the shut-in meal!

I ONLY HOPE they were relaxed enough that they were able to pull out the shovel on Thursday and clear their own sidewalks and other areas around their house – without thinking that such actions entitle them to a parking space in front of their house, even though the streets are public property!

Because aside from the nonsense concept of “dibs,” the last thing we need is more people who think they don’t have to do anything because Mother Nature and the Sun will eventually make the slop of snowfall melt away.

  -30-

Metra increases a fare, after saying there’d be no fare increases this year

I can’t say I’m surprised at the outrage some people might be feeling these days toward Metra, the commuter railroad system, for the increase in ticket prices it approved just a couple of days ago.

This increase comes just a couple of weeks after Metra officials told the Cook County Board (which reviews mass transit budgets) that they were preparing a budget for 2013 that calls for no fare hikes. Prices would remain the same, except when they don’t – it seems.

NOW FOR THOSE of you who are confused, keep in mind that Metra technically didn’t  break its word. They kept themselves within the “letter of the law,” so to speak, with regards to fares for the upcoming year.

For the basic fare for those people who ride Metra trains will remain the same. As will the prices charged for those people who purchase monthly passes to allow them to come and go every day without having to make a routine out of shelling out cash!

What Metra’s board increased was the cost of what they call a 10-ride ticket, one that gives you up to 10 rides on a Metra train for a period of up to six months.

The current fare is based on the cost of nine one-way rides, with the 10^th being a freebie on account of the fact that the commuter is coughing up their money up front. Metra gets theirs, and there’s always the chance you could lose a ticket with a ride or two remaining – meaning that they get a financial perk in the process.

BUT COME FEBRUARY, people are going to have to pay for the full 10 rides, which means the only bonus is that you won’t have to wait in the ticket line every single time you want to catch a train.

I honestly believe the fact that they were getting cash up front was a financial plus for Metra that they should have respected. Particularly since it was just this past year that all Metra fares went up – including the cost of the 10-ride tickets (it used to be that you paid the price of eight one-way rides for a 10-ride).

So excuse me for being a little less than sympathetic to Metra for slipping this increase through when their board met Friday.

And yes, I should disclose the fact that I am an occasional Metra train rider who always tries to have a 10-ride ticket on me so that I can just board a train without having to worry about paying for the ride.

CURRENTLY, I’M ON a ticket with three rides remaining. So there is a self-interest I am expressing in this particular rant of a commentary.

Keep in mind that this isn’t just a suburban issue (which is probably how some city dwellers want to view Metra since they probably use the CTA trains and buses for public commutes).

Go out to a neighborhood like Hyde Park where the elevated trains convenience skip by, and it becomes those Metra Electric trains (the ones that are getting new cars that finally will have lavatory facilities) that provide the direct connection to downtown Chicago – along with neighborhoods such as South Shore and South Chicago.

Swing out to the Southwest Side, and it becomes those Rock Island line trains that can take Beverly or Morgan Park neighborhood residents deeper into the city without having to drive a car. It's not just people coming in from Kenosha, Wis. (although there are a few of them as well).

THIS MOVE – WHICH Metra officials say is meant to raise $8.3 million to be used for repairs and maintenance – is going to have an impact on many people,

Which makes me convinced I’m not the only one who feels a bit of disgust – even if an increased cost of a Metra 10-ride is still probably cheaper than the cost of parking one’s car at a downtown garage!

But that’s a rant to be written for another day.

  -30-

Wave of the transit future?

There might be one plus to the overhaul the Chicago Transit Authority plans to do to that train line that runs down the middle of the Dan Ryan Expressway – it could be the act that forces transit officials from city and suburb to figure out how their systems should work together.

Because the way the system is set up now is so oriented to, perhaps, the first third of the 20^th Century – rather than the way the world really works these days.

AT A TIME when some officials think we should be encouraging people to use mass transit more often, we have to accept the fact that the current layout makes such use way too impractical.

There have been times I have lived in city neighborhoods that were laid out in ways where it was utterly practical to rely on the el trains and buses to get around – along with the occasional taxicab.

I can see how some people are able to get through life without an automobile. A part of me wishes I could do that now.

Instead, I keep an aging automobile running because I don’t want the payment of a new car, and the idea of not having any car would keep me completely isolated. Because I’m living these days in a place where I’d be cut off from certain parts of the world.

EVEN THOUGH I live these days just a few blocks (an easy walk) from a Metra commuter station on the Rock Island line that runs from LaSalle Street station to Joliet’s Union Station – where in theory I can catch the Amtrak train that could take me to Springfield, St. Louis or point further on.

Some people don’t even have that much access.

City vs. suburb needs to end....

Which is why I was glad to see the Chicago Sun-Times report on Thursday that has the CTA and Metra trying to figure out how their lines can cooperate. Perhaps some people who now rely on that “red” line train from 95^th Street north to downtown can use a Metra Electric train just to the east to be able to make their commute to work when the CTA line is shut down for a major overhaul.

Because the idea that a system meant to get around Chicago proper and another meant to take people from suburbs to downtown just misses the point.



... for good of metropolitan area



MORE PEOPLE FROM suburban areas might be willing to use mass transit if they could more easily get to locations around Chicago – rather than having to take the trip all the way downtown, then try to figure out how to get to whatever neighborhood they want to go to via the CTA.

And let’s be honest. There are holes in the CTA system. I don’t see any el trains that go to the Hyde Park neighborhood. There, the Metra trains that happen to pass through get used for local transportation needs when they make their stops around 51^st, 55^th and 59^th streets.

Or you can take the fact that el trains only go as far south as 95^th Street – even though the Chicago city limit is largely 119^th Street, and dips as far south as 138^th Street in some points.

That’s a large swath of city ignored by the CTA (to the point where those residents have grown up expecting nothing in the way of mass transit, even though their tax dollars have to pay for it).

FOR THOSE CITY residents who have reasons to venture into suburban communities, life can be just as complicated – unless their business happens to be limited to specific communities like Evanston, Oak Park or Cicero.

Life doesn’t end at those communities right on the city border.

So as CTA officials try to figure out how they can use Metra trains to help their riders cope with the shutdown period next year, perhaps they can also engage in the kind of talks that could someday see us have a truly legitimate metropolitan transit system.

For the fact is that the Chicago area continues to grow (Peotone isn’t really as isolated a community as third airport opponents would like to think it is). Mass transit is going to have to grow along with it if we’re going to be able to go anywhere.

  -30-

There’s going to be a lot of last-minute adjustments for South Side commuters

Knowing my luck, at some point in the next few days I’m going to be offered some magnificent job that will be just too good to turn down, but will require me to turn back to regular use of commuter trains.

Because it seems that the commuters from the South and Southwest sides and their surrounding suburbs are going to have to figure out how to get between their homes and downtown Chicago next month when NATO has its summit next month at the McCormick Place.

THE PROBLEM, INSOFAR as security for that event is concerned, is that there are railroad tracks that run underneath the building – which makes it vulnerable in so many ways to someone looking to cause mischief.

Those tracks are used by the Metra electric trains that run to suburban University Park and Blue Island, along with the trains that run to the South Chicago neighborhood.

They also are used by the South Shore commuter rail trains that make a stop in the Hegewisch neighborhood – along with stops in several Northwest Indiana cities en route to South Bend.

I’m sure the people who live to the northwest who never give a thought to anything that exists south of Congress Parkway will be shrugging their shoulders and thinking, “Who cares?!?”

BUT THE FACT that security officials are hinting that trains may have to be halted for the duration of the NATO summit (scheduled for May 20-21) and the days leading up to the event threatens to interfere with many thousands of people being able to get to their jobs.

A lot of people are going to need all the time they can get to try to figure out a back-up plan; whether that means driving to work, or driving a bit to the west to catch a commuter train on the Rock Island line that goes to Joliet – making stops throughout the Beverly neighborhood and suburbs such as Oak Forest, Tinley Park and Frankfort along the way.

Which means those commuter trains will be overloaded with passengers – a fact that is bound to infuriate the “regulars” who are going to think of this as some sort of intrusion on their turf.

Yes, during my experiences with commuting, I have used both the Metra Electric and Rock Island line trains. So this is a very real experience that, at one time, would have impacted me personally.

IT MAY STILL do so, if it turns out that I wind up in Chicago (either at McCormick Place or in downtown proper) as a reporter-type person writing about the gatherings of people who feel it is their obligation to show up at the event and protest the existence and activities of NATO.

Or maybe I’ll get lucky and figure out a way to bypass those locales for those few days next month.

What complicates the situation is the fact that the Secret Service (which is overseeing security measures for the event) is going out of its way to say nothing whatsoever about the security measures.

The Chicago Tribune reported that Metra won’t know until the end of April what they will be allowed to do insofar as running those commuter trains in proximity to the dignitaries.

WHICH MEANS THAT real people likely will get about two weeks, at most, to figure out what they will need to do to ensure they can still get to their jobs – because somehow I doubt the employers of downtown Chicago are going to feel all that sympathetic to the dilemma being faced by their South Side-residing employees.

There’s also an amusing aspect to this issue – the fact that May 20 (a Sunday) is the date of a ballgame at Wrigley Field between the Cubs and cross-town Chicago White Sox.

Sox fans from the sout’ being unable to get to the Lakeview neighborhood to see their club of choice smack the Cubs around a bit will feel like a deprivation.

Unless, by some fluke chance, the Chicago Cubs actually manage to win that ballgame. In which case, the security interferences could turn out to be a bit of mental salvation for us.

  -30-

Hey you kids, Get Off My Lawn! And give me back my one dollar bus ride!

I’ll state it up front. Today, I’m a grumpy old man who’s going to tell you how much better things were when I was young. So if you’re one of those 18-year-olds who can’t handle being reminded that there was a Planet Earth and a society before you came into existence, go read something else.

What has me ticked off today is the word that the Chicago Transit Authority is seriously considering another rate increase.

$3 PER RIDE. Whoa!

I used the CTA as recently as Saturday, and I can remember the thought of disgust that went through my mind as I was pumping change and dollar bills into those vending machines so that I could use the subway to get from the Loop to the Near North Side (the Chicago History Museum at Clark and North, for those of you who just have to know).

Now, the thought that the same ride is going to cost one-third more. That ticks me off.

Part of it is that I can remember the days when I was a regular user of the CTA – my younger days when I took full advantage of the fact that one can live in Chicago without an automobile.

I STILL REMEMBER how to use the elevated trains to get to just about any region in the city, with the buses then working to fill in the gaps.

Back then, it was one dollar. Actually, I can remember the level of trauma many Chicagoans felt when it went from $0.90 for the ride and a dime for the transfer to $1 for the ride and an extra coin for aforementioned transfer.

It seemed like we were being massively ripped off. The very thought that our lone buck wasn’t enough, and that we’d now have to carry bills and coins for our bus/train fare somehow seemed absurd.

Now, it seems like as dated a memory as when my mother talks of how bus rides in this city were once a quarter.

ACTUALLY, IT ISN’T the cost so much because I can accept the idea that things cost more now than they used to. I can appreciate the idea that the CTA can’t function on the same amount of money as it used to in past decades.

So the thought of fare increases is a necessary evil.

But if it goes to maintain the kind of transit service that allows one to function in the city without an automobile, then it becomes worth it. In short, if I thought that things would get better with an increase, I’d have little problem (although still some grumbling) with paying it.

Even at $3 per ride.

BUT WHAT TICKS me off is the fact that this fare increase is being paired up with service cuts – a 9 percent drop in train service and 18 percent less bus service.

Now I don’t know exactly what those percentages mean. I suspect certain bus lines will simply run less often and will stop running at earlier times in the evening. There likely also will be less “late night” service, although in all honestly the amount of late night service being offered is already such a reduction from the days of the past that there are times I wonder what is being accomplished by pretending that our city has a 24-hour mass transit system?

We’re being asked to pay more for less service. That irritates me.

I’m a believer in mass transit, and happen to think that its presence is one of the factors that helps distinguish a metropolitan area of quality from one that is merely second rate.

DURING THE PORTIONS of my life where I have lived outside of Chicago (my life story is one of repeatedly moving from the city, then returning to it), I have been in places where mass transit systems usually consisted of a few bus lines that would take people to some select places.

A look at transit system maps for those cities usually would show large portions that had no such service (usually with the explanation that the local politicians catered to those residents who didn’t like the idea of just anyone being capable of coming to their neighborhood).

And those systems usually cut off at some insane hour of like 5 p.m., and had limited (or no) service on weekends.

My reaction to those cities (none of which I would want to live in again) is, “why bother?” If they can’t put forth a system that can actually move people about in large numbers, why have a third-rate system that accomplishes little?

AND MY REACTION to Chicago is to wonder if this is just another step toward giving us a third-rate system that makes it impossible for certain people to go to certain places within the city.

Now I realize the CTA is being hit with the same problem that is impacting many other local government entities across the state – Illinois government’s financial problems are causing them to cut their funding for local programs and also make the aid payments they’re still promising on a schedule that is months behind.

CTA officials claim that this $3 per ride talk wouldn’t be taking place if the state were to cough up what it had previously promised, let alone what it has offered in the past.

The problem with making such cuts is that once they are done, they tend to be permanent. Even when economic times do get better and the state gets closer to paying its bills in a timely manner, I wouldn’t be too optimistic that the CTA will be able to restore things.

THIS COULD BE one of the casualties of the fact that the General Assembly was so adamant in not wanting to have to come up with a permanent solution to balance out the state’s budget back in July – instead preferring to come up with makeshift solutions whose time is now running out.

Government officials being afraid to do something that can be distorted by political cranks on Election Day is a part of this problem, and it is one that has the potential to turn many things in our society into third-rate replicas of what they once were.

-30-

Will far South Side "culture" adapt to having the "el" within its presence?

Many people automatically associate mass transit and elevated commuter trains with urban areas.

Heck, mention the “el” and one thinks of those raucous trains roaring overhead cutting through city neighborhoods taking people from place to place.

YET THERE HAS long been a significant portion of the city for which the idea of mass transit and the “el” was a mythical concept – something that exists elsewhere but is just a dream for us.

I’m talking about the far South Side of Chicago – that land where street numbers are in the hundreds and where some of the streets even bear the names of letters (Avenue O, anyone?)

The Chicago Transit Authority gave its approval Wednesday to a project that could someday change that mentality. But I’m wondering if the thought patterns of a whole generation of Calumet Area types are so engrained that the thought of taking the “el” to go anywhere will remain an alien concept.

I’m sure there will be people who live in places such as the East Side or Roseland who will figure they got along all these hundreds of years without the “el,” so who needs it now.

SOME MAY EVEN think they remain in such neighborhoods because of their mass transit isolation from the rest of Chicago.

So when I looked at the graphics prepared by the CTA that detailed how the Red, Orange and Yellow elevated train lines were to be extended, I was unsure what to think – except for the Yellow line, which is meant to stretch out even further into suburban Skokie so that theoretically, people can go from the State Street shopping experience to the Old Orchard Shopping Center.

That strikes me as silly, but I’m sure there is somebody who thinks it is long overdue for people in Chicago to take the “Skokie Swift” all the way to their suburban shopping mall.

Now I will be the first to admit that when I lived in neighborhoods of Chicago on the North and Northwest sides, I loved using the “el” It was convenient, the trains ran somewhat regularly and I literally could get around the city at a moment’s notice without an automobile.

WHEN ONE COMBINES those “el” lines with the bus system, it works well. But the whole city never had the benefit of the setup that exists north of the Chicago River.

Certain parts of the South Side don’t have an “el” line that come anywhere near them – primarily because the major South Side line is that Red Line train that cuts down the middle of the Dan Ryan expressway.

Unless one lives right by the expressway, using those “el” trains were too much of an annoyance to get to. There also is the fact that the Red Line only went as far south as 95th Street, whereas for most of the South Side, the city/suburban boundary is 119th Street and in some parts (like the Hegewisch neighborhood) goes as far south as 138th Street.

95th and the Dan Ryan wasn’t that convenient for many far South Siders, and when combined with the somewhat seedy reputation that particular stop has developed in some people’s minds, it meant that “el” trains were not a part of the daily reality.

SO NOW, THE CTA wants to stretch the Red Line down to 130th Street, while also making stops at 103rd, 111th and 115th streets. A whole new generation of Roseland and Pullman neighborhood residents will get to experience an “el” train as an alternative to the Metra Electric south suburban commuter trains that make a stop at 115th Street.

Will they get used? Maybe.

Although a part of me wonders if those who live in any surrounding neighborhoods will make a trip into a place near the Pullman neighborhood to catch an “el” train.

The sad part of many people, whether urban, suburban or rural, is that they easily get latched into their habits and it creates a mindset. Those attitudes aren’t easy to break.

I CAN’T SEE many people who currently catch a South Shore line commuter train when it makes its stop in the Hegewisch neighborhood giving up that option to catch an “el” train at 130th Street – even though for some people who live in the western part of that neighborhood, it would be closer to their homes.

It is habit that there are no trains when one gets that far south. Those of us who have a problem with that isolation (such as myself, I was born in the South Chicago neighborhood but don’t live there anymore) left a long time ago.

And those who can live with being cut off from the rest of Chicago (such as some of my relatives who remain in places such as the East Side and South Deering) probably aren’t getting all worked up over the CTA’s latest action – which by all admission will take years to become a reality.

After all, the CTA still needs to get money to pay for the project, let alone time to actually construct it.

THERE IS ONE plus.

When that “el” station at 130th Street (just west of the Bishop Ford Expressway) does get built, it will be within eyesight of the landfills maintained by Waste Management Corp., which has gone a long way toward controlling the smell of rotting trash that used to pervade the air throughout the area.

I’d hate to think of having to wait to catch an “el” train while coping with that stench. It would be unbearable, and enough of a reason to find an alternate mode of transportation.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Extensions of the Yellow and Orange train lines will take people to the Old Orchard and Ford City shopping centers respectively, while extending the Red (http://www.transitchicago.com/news/default.aspx?Month=&Year=&Category=2&ArticleId=2435) line will put people within site of garbage dumps.

“Bar Cars” become relic of the past

The Chicago Tribune came up with the almost-dignified euphemism of “rail saloon,” while Metra (the commuter railroad that connects Chicago to the surrounding suburbs) officially refers to them as “refreshment cars.”

Yet to anyone who has actually used a Metra train, they were the “bar cars.”

SPECIFICALLY, THEY WERE the lone car located somewhere in the middle of a 10- to 12-car train that could not be entered from the outside because its’ entrance was blocked with a freezer that stocked beverages (both alcoholic and pop – I refuse to call it “soda”).

That car’s presence would allow people to purchase a drink to enjoy while enduring a commuter train ride home to a location on the outer edge of Chicago or one of its many suburbs.

Now these bar cars were not universal. I never saw them on the Metra Electric line trains that I rode for many years, although they did exist on the Rock Island line commuter trains connecting downtown to Joliet and on some other Metra lines I occasionally rode during my lifetime.

But after Friday, they will not exist anywhere.

THE TRIBUNE REPORTED that the cars were bringing in so little revenue that Metra officials have decided they can better use the space taken up by bar car patrons to seat passengers – many of whom are increasing their commuter train usage because the cost of gasoline remains ridiculously high (even if it is possible to find gas at just under $4 per gallon, if one looks intensely enough).

Now many people are going to label me a party pooper, but I must admit to not being upset that the bar cars are becoming an obsolete concept, just like the notion that Metra trains used to reserve one car (the one up front closest to the locomotive) for smokers of various tobacco products.

The bar cars never took on the raunchy stink that the smoking cars did, but the bar cars had their own unique aura.

They also contained one of the secrets to riding a Metra train during the rush hours. When other cars were crammed with people, there was always a good chance of getting a seat in the bar car – if one could push their way through the other cars to get to the bar car.

ONCE GETTING TO the bar car proper, one would often find that half the seats were empty – even though there were a significant number of people in the car.

That’s because the typical bar car patron wasn’t the least bit interested in sitting down. They wanted to stand around and drink, while babbling incoherently. They were also the kind of people who liked to stand around and clog up the aisles and make it impossible for people to get through – all so they could enjoy their brand of cheap, domestic beer.

And as the Tribune noted in a story it published this week about the demise of the bar cars, it often was the same people. If you could stand to be in their presence for up to an hour and a half (the length of a Metra train ride to the most distant of suburbs), then you could get a seat.

It the smell of cheap beer nauseated you, then you were stuck dealing with the overcrowded cars on the rest of a Metra commuter train.

AND THERE WAS one other drawback. That smell would linger for some time. If one was stuck working a few extra hours in downtown Chicago and had to take a late-evening train, one would often have to cope with the aroma (and occasionally, the rubbish) from the bar car crowd. It usually took an overnight airing out to fully clean out these rail cars.

Now for those people who are about to complain that it is an inconvenience to ride a train without some place to purchase overpriced refreshments, I have to say “get real.”

Every downtown Chicago train station that handles Metra commuter trains I have ever seen has several stands selling refreshments, including the same beer or pop that one would buy on board the train. It will still be possible to purchase something before getting on board.

The only thing that will change is the disappearance of the people who considered their train ride home a high point of their day by being able to buy a beer and clog up the aisles of the bar car by refusing to sit down.

NOW, THEY’LL HAVE to buy it in advance, and take a seat. Let’s just hope these people don’t get sloppy, and start spilling their beverages on the rest of us.

And if it means that in some cases, a person has to wait a bit until they get to their home neighborhood or suburb before having an after-work drink, that might be an improvement (although it appears that was not a concern of Metra when they decided to phase out bar cars).

It’s not like many of these rides are so long that one needs nourishment in order to survive. A commuter train ride home is not the equivalent of an Amtrak train ride to St. Louis, Memphis or Detroit, or even the St. Louis-bound train that makes downstate Illinois stops in Bloomington and Springfield (two train stops I am well acquainted with in my life).

Taking the train from downtown Chicago to the Statehouse in Springfield is made a tad more bearable by being able to get something to drink. Needing that same drink on board a commuter train to Joliet – that’s just a lack of self-discipline.

SO EXCUSE ME for thinking that the people who cluttered up the Chicago Tribune’s website comments section with accounts of how this represents the demise of Chicago’s character are being too melodramatic.

The loss of a bar car on board a Metra train isn’t the same as Marshall Fields’ department stores evolving into that symbol of New York shopping known as Macy’s. I’d hate to think Metra would start getting the same overly emotional people with nothing better to do with their lives all worked up because they can no longer buy a can of “Old Style” beer on board the train, but have to bring it on board with them for their ride home from work.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I wonder how many of the hundreds of people who added their thoughts about the demise of “bar cars” (http://www.topix.net/forum/source/chicago-tribune/T60O4K3TFRI9CRI23) on board Metra commuter trains did so with work-related computers or on time that was supposed to be spent working.

“Wait ‘til next year” has different meaning for White Sox fans who suffer the “double-pass”

It’s called “the double-pass,” and as someone who has lived the bulk of his life along various stops on the Metra Electric and Rock Island commuter train lines (both at city and suburban locations), the routine has become a part of the character of going to a White Sox game.

I purchase a pair of tickets (one for the return ride home) to ride a Metra commuter train to the end of the line (Michigan Avenue for Metra Electric, Van Buren Street for Rock Island). Once I am in the heart of downtown Chicago, I walk a couple of blocks until I hit State Street and the Chicago Transit Authority.

ON “THAT GREAT Street,” I catch a Red Line subway train (I still think of it as the Dan Ryan Line) that takes me back south a bit until we hit 35th Street. When I get to stand on the CTA train platform that runs down the middle of the Dan Ryan Expressway, I get to see the colossus of a ballpark where the White Sox play 81 times each season.

But the backtracking of different train lines (the whole trip can cost just over $10) is a pain in the butt. It’s almost enough to get me to give up on watching baseball live (or else settle for the Joliet Jackhammers of the Northern League, as my all-time favorite minor league ballclub - the Springfield Capitals of the Frontier League - no longer exist).

Which is why I got my kicks this week when I learned Metra commuter railroad officials are going ahead with construction work on a new station at 35th Street. Located directly against the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, the station also would be within sight – and walking distance – of U.S. Cellular Field.

From the years when I routinely rode the Rock Island line trains (which go from LaSalle and Van Buren streets to Union Station in downtown Joliet), I know the commute for a ballgame was particularly infuriating because as the train progressed north from places like Beverly and Mount Greenwood into the central city, it approaches 35th Street and one can see the stadium looming over the expressway and the train tracks.

IT WAS ALMOST enough to make those of us wanting to go to a ballgame want to hijack the train and force a Metra conductor to open the train doors so we could “hop off” right at the place where the Armour Square and Bronzeville neighborhoods meet (and where the White Sox’ stadium is located – Bridgeport is actually the next neighborhood over to the west of the stadium).

Yet those of us on board the train wanting to go to a ballgame would have to resign ourselves to passing the building by and waiting until we got downtown for a second train – one that would actually stop at the stadium and let us get off.

Now, assuming that no more regional politics interfere, 2008 will go into the books as the final season that those of us South Siders (both the city type and the south suburban ones who serve as an extension of the Great South Side) will have to do the double-pass in order to see a Sox game.

Now some people would argue that I should just drive to the game (my brother is one of those, he hates taking the commuter trains because he objects to the double-pass). I disagree, in large part because I hate having to pay for parking. A legal spot near the stadium can cost about $20 (an illegal one involves putting one’s car at risk, and isn’t worth it).

I ENJOY THE idea of being able to walk up to the building without going through the hassle of finding a parking space, and knowing I can just walk away from the building after the game without having to fight my way out of the parking lots filled with other motorists – all of whom want to get out of the neighborhood as soon as possible.

So I have learned to tolerate the double-pass.

But I will thoroughly enjoy being able to go to a ballgame and get off the train directly at the stadium, and know that after the game I can just walk to a train platform and catch a return ride home. I will no longer have to become a clock-watcher once the game gets into the seventh or eighth innings.

It is the reality of attending a weekday night game (of which there are many played each season) that one has to get out of the stadium by about 10 p.m. (10:10 p.m. – at the latest) if they are to catch a CTA train back north to downtown, then hustle over to the Metra station to catch the 10:55 p.m. train headed south – which will pass U.S. Cellular Field sometime about 11:05 p.m.

IT WOULD BE so nice to know I could just catch the train directly, and that the concept of missing the final inning of a game because I didn’t want to miss the 10:55 p.m. train (and be stuck on the “last train of the night” at 12:30 a.m. that wouldn’t get me home until a ridiculously late hour) is a thing of the past.

At a time when government officials in Chicago are always trying to urge people NOT to drive their cars everywhere and to want to visit attractions in Chicago, it always struck me as pathetic that it was the political people who stopped a 35th Street station from being built before now.

It is the politics of mass transit in Chicago that the CTA is perceived as a city-based system with a few end-of-the-line suburban stops, while Metra trains are perceived as suburban-based systems that take people to downtown Chicago – and nowhere else.

Politicos who think like that always saw it as a waste of suburban transit dollars to build a new train station in the city – even if it would be largely a suburban audience that would be able to enjoy it. Technically, even a rural audience could use the stop, if they were to take an Amtrak intercity train to Joliet, then walk to the other end of the station’s platform and catch the Metra train to 35th street.

JUST IMAGINE – A pair of trains could take you from the Statehouse in Springfield or the Illinois State University campus in Normal to U.S. Cellular Field. More adventurous people could use the railroad pairing to go from St. Louis’ Busch Stadium to “the Cell” – allowing fans of the two legitimate major league teams followed by Illinoisans to be joined at the track.

The point is, you won’t have to imagine it. Eliminating the double-pass will become reality as of 2009.

Basically, a league championship and World Series title for a Chicago major league team was the ultimate fantasy for many a South Sider. Getting to avoid the double-pass to go to a game is the second-best thing.

Now if we could just lose that mope in the blue jersey who insists on yelling “Sox stink” the entire game, then U.S. Cellular Field would truly be a baseball paradise.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Metra officials hope to accept bids for the actual construction work of a new (http://www.southtownstar.com/news/880933,0407metrasox.article) commuter train station later this year.

Here’s hoping that this information provided by Metra about the easiest way to get to a White Sox game (http://metrarail.com/Special_Promotions/baseball2008.html) will soon be obsolete.