After flying into O’Hare early this morning, I checked both Uber and Lyft and found high prices and long traffic delays along the route to the Chicago Loop.
After grumbling a bit, I decided to follow my curiosity and the signage towards the Chicago Transit Authority L train, which, I was amazed to find, regularly ferries airport travelers downtown directly from O’Hare.
Still a little bit wary, I paid my $5 fare (the Uber this morning would have been $95), took my seat — the train was nearly empty — and zipped down the line. In just 40 minutes, I found myself at the Monroe Avenue L station, just around the block from my hotel, in downtown Chicago.
Along the way, I wasn’t even assaulted, mugged, or accosted by itinerant Buddhist monks.
I still can’t believe it. As a onetime New York resident, still very much fond of the inexplicable irrationality of the MTA and the New York City subway, the whole thing offends my sensibilities. New York’s subway system, famously, reaches neither LaGuardia Airport nor JFK. In Gotham, to get to the airport, you have to take a cab, or a car service, or, heaven forfend, a bus.
But apparently they don’t do it this way in the Windy City? Doesn’t Chicago know that getting to and from the airport should be incredibly inconvenient and exorbitantly expensive, as God intended?
I need an explanation from Jeff Blehar about just what the hell is going on around here.