I feel a storm coming on over in the Bears parking thread because I groused about Soldier Field being poorly accessible by both car and rail, so I thought this might be a good place to talk about the Metra and the L and how one might make them better here and there.
- a United Center stop on the Pink Line (Madison/Paulina). With the impending Wirtzdorfville development taking away parking spaces, they'll need to compensate with better accessibility from the L. I know there are stops at Ashland/Lake and the Medical District, but between winter and the West Side, one shouldn't have to walk any more than they have to. Besides, with the shops and restaurants they're building, you'd want to drop people off right there.
- extend the Red and Orange Lines to 130th and Ford City, respectively. This is supposed to start happening soon, I think.
- the names of the Metra lines are kind of confusing if you don't know the history of 19th century railroads. The "Milwaukee District North" doesn't go to Milwaukee. The "Union Pacific North" doesn't, either, but it goes to Kenosha, which approaches Milwaukee. The "Rock Island District" doesn't go to Rock Island, and why would it, anyway. Why is the one to Antioch a "service" and not a "line"? Why do I care? Why should I even have occasion to ask? Then there's the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the Heritage Corridor, which tell you nothing about anything. Either do what the Metro-North does in New York and just name the lines for their terminal cities, or just use the direction, so my Milwaukee District North line would be either the Fox Lake Line or just the North Line.
- The Metra Electric in the city should probably be part of the CTA. I'd have to look at a map to figure out if they can connect the lines somehow, but it seems weird to have that whole side of town on another system and probably paying higher fares. There's a guy who's proposing it be merged into the CTA as the Grey Line. That might be better.
- Speaking of Metra and the 19th century, there has to be a better system by now than having a man in a funny outfit punch my paper ticket. Is there ever going to be any way we can get Metra and the CTA onto a universal farecard? I know it's impossible to fare-control the Metra stations, but maybe something where you scan in and out as you board and/or disembark? I'm sure people who are smarter than I am have figured out how to do this, but Metra seems like the kind of governmental organization that drags its feet on everything, not the least of which being any sort of cooperation with the CTA.
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