mythbusters: more people ride than drive??

i'm not a typical Chicagoan at this very moment in time. ok, let me clarify. when i think of a real Chicagoan, i think of, say, my roomie. she gets up at the crack of dawn, stumbles bleary-eyed into the sunless morning and hikes 4 blocks to the el. she switches lines at the belmont stop, gets squished into the red line car with the 200 other early morning commuters, blesses her ipod and yawns toward the horizon. after fighting up the stairs and pulling her coat close against the wind, she arrives at work. 7:30am. come quittin' time, she does the same in reverse.

it is said that a typical chicagoan will bump elbows with humanity at least 500 times a day. after all, this is a city of 2.8 million.

i bump elbows with the girl from accounting while she gets off the elevator at the 3rd floor. that's about it. why? because i'm a reverse commuter. i get into my car and plunge into the arteries of the windy city, avoiding blockage where possible, hating my long commute into the demure southern suburbs. however, when i return home, and i hear about how smelly the el was from said roomie, i am grateful for my car.

i digress... more on the glory of car in another entry. my point is that the myth is: a good, typical chicagoan is my roomate. i am here to debunk that myth today. from observations made by yours truely.

1. on any given day, the travel time on the Kennedy, getting into Chicago is at least 45 minutes. This is a 16 mile stretch of FREEWAY that totes EXPRESS LANES.

2. at least 27 million daily trips happen in the greater chicagoland area. in my experience, at least 1 million people are moron drivers. then you have the 2 million grannies and little old men in hats driving huge sedans. then you have the 12 million other drivers (aka ME) just trying to arrive at a destination in one piece. in my best estimate, that leaves less than half of chicago commuters as public transportationists.

3. you always see construction on illinois highways. you rarely see construction on public transportation (only the brown line right now, and yes, albeit ishy, still gets people to work). i'm going to get flack for this observation. but seriously folks, look at how much highway construction there is, and for how long it lasts, and how much havok it reeks on drivers in illinois. why would we do this? so that we can fit more people on the roads.

based on these weak observations, many hours in the car spent fretting about lost time and many minutes spent on rare public transit trips, i believe that the majority of chicagoans drive to work. the myth will always be there, guys. but i am living proof that this myth is debunked.

why am i debunking this myth? because i need to live with myself every day. or perhaps the exhaust fumes finally got to me...