train ride to united center
We were so lucky to get to experience Pearl Jam in concert at the United Center in September, which happened to be the best concert ever!!
In the spirit of adventure and for the benefit of the blog we decided to leave our trusty Honda Accord at the hotel and use the Chicago train system. I will share what we learned about the CTA.
I like to use public transportation in large cities as it’s better as it is easier than trying to manage the traffic and find parking. Furthermore, it is better for the environment. Other than witnessing an altercation on the train and a car wreck it all went as planned. More on this later.
As far as ticket pricing in 2023 you can get a one way ticket for $3 or a day pass for $5. I find it a little odd that the one day pass is cheaper than one round trip but that’s how they roll. Regardless, it is a very inexpensive way to travel around the 3rd largest US city.
There are several train lines running through and around Chicago but I’ll only discuss what was used for our journey. The purple and red lines run north and south and the green and pink run east and west. The loop contains stops where these lines loop and intersect.
We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Evanston on Maple Street, click here for review. We walked south of the hotel on Maple a short distance and behind a building complex at Church and Maple, at the end of the street, we arrived at the Davis purple line station. I purchased the one day pass and hopped on the purple line heading southbound toward the Howard redline station.
It was approximately 4 pm on Tuesday so lucky for us the purple line runs as an express all the way to the loop. We made excellent time. We transferred off the purple line at Clark and Lake and grabbed the green line west toward Ashland. The express times are approximately 4 to 7 pm on weekdays.
The train stations are named by the street intersections they are near. We exited the train at the Ashland stop and to get to the United Center from there it is a short 0.6 mile walk that consists of just two streets.
Our travel time was less than an hour and 20 minutes.
There were around 22,000 people leaving the concert. As a result, traffic was extremely congested. Walking to the train station we were in a horde of people buzzing with energy post Pearl Jam, cars passed with music flowing in the air. We arrived at the first very busy intersection and were startled by the sudden erupting sound of a car getting crushed as a collision occurred a few feet away. A great example of the benefit of public transportation with such dense traffic. No one was harmed thankfully.
The journey back did take longer as we didn’t get to benefit of the express. We would need to transfer from the green line to red at the loop then take the red to Howard and transfer to the purple line and go back to the Davis station. It was after 1 am and I was nervous the purple wouldn’t run that late but did appear to run after 130 am at least.
In the late hours one of the passengers rushed on board of the red line and picked up a backpack in the seat next to me and threw it onto the floor and plopped himself down. He turned to the owner of the backpack and threatened him, screaming that it was disrespectful to use the seat to store his belongings. A lot of vulgar words spewed out of the high testosterone idiot. It wasn’t exactly comfortable having the aggressor setting right beside me. I was hoping to not witness a brawl in such tight quarters. A couple of stops later the man exited the train and all was right on the CTA. I did hear an automated announcement overhead that did state to NOT place your belongings into open seats, so noted.
The trip back to the hotel was a total time of over an hour and 40 mins.
Finally, I will definitely use the train system more in the future. It is inexpensive and removes the nuisance of driving and paying for parking if you can find a spot. It is of course a really slow means of transportation vs a more expensive cab or Uber. Is it safer than driving? That all depends on the idiots you encounter.
