So, for almost a decade, we’ve been standing in long lines at the airport, to be poked and prodded, scanned and patted, questioned and searched under the EXTREMELY unlikely (some figures suggest the odds are 1 in 10,000,000) of dying in a terrorism-related airline incident.  The search procedures are sometimes humiliating.  The TSA officials are definitely condescending.  The hassle is undeniable.  Nine years out, notwithstanding the total absence of any act of terrorism, the terror alert color is still at orange, which is the second-highest level.  Are we safer?  The jury is still out on that.

While just thirteen miles out at O’Hare airport, I can count on being frisked up and down, as I and every other passenger is presumed to be one of the next plane-downing terrorists, hundreds of thousands of Chicago residents live in daily fear of gang violence.  As I relinquish a new bottle of shampoo to a TSA agent, so everyone can get to Orlando safely, a child is being shot to death in a Chicago neighborhood.  While my hands are being swabbed for explosives residue, thousands of Chicago families live in daily fear of gang activity, gang threats, gang recruitment of their pre-teen and teen children.  How is this not “terrorism?”

Here is the Federal guideline for determining whether an activity is terrorism:

Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “…the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85)

Gangs indeed use unlawful force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce the civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives.  Are they trying to establish a new nation or institutionalize a religious doctrine?  No.  But they are a structured, hierarchical group that strives to exist as an extra-governmental entity for the purpose of furthering their own agenda of controlling certain geographic areas and extracting revenue from the residents of those areas.  They certainly have social objectives–commanding respect, staking out “territories,” posturing themselves economically and achieving a certain status that influences the young to join their groups and coerces others to overlook their illegal activity.  Isn’t this enough to qualify as terrorism?  Wasn’t the whole driving premise behind our national outrage against Muslim terrorists that we would not be intimidated by violence to alter our culture of democracy and freedom?  Are the residents of these gang-ridden areas of Chicago enjoying democracy and freedom?  They live in curious pockets of our nation where a fair share of public money does not get to them.  Their schools are slighted, their police protection is slighted and as a result, the economic environment, normally made favorable by a stable government, does not exist where they live.  This absence of state, federal or local government oversight is replaced by pseudo-governmental gangs run with every bit of cruelty as we imagine an Al-Qaeda based government would run.

Gang members even kill police.  How much more anti-government, how much more armed, how much more lethal or threatening do you have to be to qualify as a “terrorist?”  These gangs persist with their illegal, unregistered weapons, their blatant threats and intimidation, their unrelenting homicidal behavior, their arrogant indifference to our laws or civil rights and suffer only the occasional police inquiry to punctuate their reign of terror.  Yet I doubt if you took a group of them and registered them for a Delta flight to Europe that they would even get through the security checkpoint.  If they behaved on a plane or in Lake Forest the way they behave in Englewood, military force against them would be swift.

As I meekly bare myself in screening machines and suppress my self-respect to placate the scolding, brooding TSA agents at O’Hare, so that I can achieve the “privilege” of riding on an airplane, Americans in urban pockets throughout this country are being victimized every day by domestic terrorists in the form of gangs, who kill their friends, family, storekeepers, toddlers, infants, honor students and police–all without ever being classified by our government as “terrorists.”

But that is assuredly what they are.  How sad to live in a country that takes tax money from undefended people, who live in daily terror, in order to fight the allegedly ever-present, but never-defined specter of external “terrorism.”  This federally-declared terrorism rarely manifests as the potent fear, violence and death that has become a weekly reality for Americans in the gang-governed territories of our country that the U.S. government has chosen to ignore.  The national safety priority is apparently limited to the prevention of planes being taken over and crashed into things, but domestic terrorism in the form of daily assassinations of the young and innocent, within America is not even on Homeland Security’s radar screen.

Chicago has all of the big city negatives you would expect: crime, congestion, pollution, corruption, grit, expense, poverty, stress, etc., but it also has something extra–Contempt for its own residents.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in Chicago’s all-out war against car owners. Rather than adopting progressive community car parks or dedicating itself to an outstanding mass transit system, or giving tax breaks for car pooling or energy-efficient cars, Chicago’s approach is to create an impossible obstacle course of potential parking violations that seek to ensnare even the most clever individuals.

The war is fought on several fronts and your war chest is the primary goal:

(links to related news articles below)

• Increasing parking rates
• Reduction of available parking
• Increased parking enforcement
• Increased automated enforcement

The result is a Byzantine mine field of potential parking and driving hazards that are not only bleeding the residents of money, but bleeding their spirits as well.  With the ever-deteriorating state of Chicago public transit (CTA) and a new threat of increased bus and train fares, residents are feeling the constricting stranglehold of local government as it squeezes the life out of their mobility and ultimately–their quality of life.  Business owners, already feeling a hit from the city’s astonishing 10.25% sales tax, (the highest in the nation) are now faced with having to attract shell-shocked customers who would rather shop the burbs than risk entering the labyrinth of the Minotaur–that is now the city of Chicago.

I have sarcastically compared Chicago to a “breakaway Soviet republic,” because of it’s shabby appearance and dictatorial mayor, to “Gotham City,” because of its bleakness, lack of soulfulness and corruption, to the “Third World” because of its large tracts of abject poverty, gang violence and crumbling infrastructure, but I usually only meant those quips half-heartedly.

Now, however, I stand behind those remarks.  Today, the Chicago Police came into my private parking garage, in a condo building and ticketed all cars without a residential permit parking sticker at $120 per ticket.  This was on PRIVATE PROPERTY!  The government trespassed onto privately-held land and issued tickets without any warning and without the permission of the landowners.  This seems to violate every fundamental American notion of privacy and protection against unlawful search and seizure.  If I owned a house, with a garage attached to it, next to it or behind it, would I not be allowed to keep a car there whether it was registered or not, insured or not, and with or without a residential permit?  Why then is a condo owner, who OWNS their parking space not entitled to the same rights?  Beware all Chicago homeowners, for a knock at your door will soon be at hand, so the police may enter your garage and inspect your car for a residential permit.  If they can invade a private condo building, then they apparently have the authority to gain entrance to your enclosed garage as well.

Today I realized my hunch was right, Chicago cares nothing of its residents.  This is a city that is dying a slow death, as it consumes the last bit of revenue it can raise through absurd contrivances like selling its Skyway or its parking meters, by installing cameras everywhere, by creating street parking riddles through deceptive signage and by sending its police force onto the private property of residents to scope for any excuse they can to hang a ticket on your car.

I once joked that in Chicago you can get a ticket in your sleep.  That concept is no longer a joke, but a sad reality in a city that is broke, desperate and slowly sinking back into the swamp it once rose out of with such promise.  Never have I been in a city of such melancholy, where psychological depression hovers like a toxic cloud over the streets and buildings, where people settle for such mediocrity in their urban lifestyle and accept such a minimal quality of life.  Some residents–no less due to the fact that they’re either in denial or simply do not know any better–will even defend Chicago against critical observations, which are obvious to any outsider.

Today’s ticket and the subsequent state violation of my personal property is the final straw for me.  I gave Chicago five years to grow on me and instead it infected me with a rot to my soul that will take years to undo.  Clearly, the Olympic Committee sensed a similar sense of this ennui which permeates every corner of Chicago and they were keen enough to see through the window dressing of carefully-placed flower planters and river walk gimmicks.  Chicago is a sadly neglected, difficult and lifeless place to live–absent of much human warmth, dynamism, culture or vision and having only a smattering of the opportunities, tastes, sights and energy that are so abundant in other large cities.

I’ll begin with the one that still has me amazed–My half-hour Blue Line commute from Clark and Lake to O’Hare yesterday. I was blown away. I can remember the Blue Line taking a full hour from Division/Milwaukee to O’Hare, as I nervously fidgeted and muttered profanities under my breath each time the train came to a stop or slowed to walking speed. I remember being so angry and frustrated that Chicago couldn’t get it together on something other cities have a complete mastery of–efficient mass transit. Being a bit of a train enthusiast and being aware of train technologies going back to the coal powered train I rode at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, WI to the MagLev train proposals for Southern California, I rated CTA trains as slightly more sophisticated than an 1880s steam locomotive–without the historic charm. The stations were almost Soviet in their disrepair and dreariness. Having ridden my first subways in Japan and Europe, I laughed when I saw that Chicago still used wooden railroad ties. Imagine that–I’m in the global center of steel and concrete, but the “El” runs on the same track concept that brought Gold Rush prospectors to California in the 1890s.

It saddened me too that there was this comprehensive underground and above-ground infrastructure, sprawling out across Chicagoland, that somebody at sometime thought was worthy enough to construct, just rusting away into an uncertain future. Yet, more people than ever were riding these rails. Economically the CTA’s neglect of its public rail system made no sense to me. It seemed like city officials were either apathetic to or unaware of the great potential housed in the skeleton of this majestic, but ailing serpent. Then, this year, that serpent awoke.

The new platforms look fantastic. If you clubbed me on the head and I came to at the Fullerton or Lake Street stations, I might think I was in Denmark the few moments before being panhandled. According to the CTA’s website, 42,000 of it’s 650,000 railroad ties have been replaced with Composite Recycled Plastic Railroad Ties that make the ride smoother and faster due to the better calibrated rail widths these uniform and durable track anchors maintain. The rest of the smoothness will have to come from upgraded cars with newer suspensions, but the new tracks are an incredible start. The trains are visibly cleaner than they ever were–that goes for the buses as well. Both modes of transit are no longer displaying large gaps in advertising like they used to. I’m also impressed at how well the plastic window applications are keeping the graffiti at bay. I was recently in Amsterdam and while their trains are great, every single window, on every single train, had unsightly graffiti etched into it. Maybe it’s just me, but the CTA buses do not seem to be “bunching” at stops as much as they used to either.

At any rate, over the past few months, I’ve noticed small improvements here and there throughout the CTA–from the things I mentioned above to the debit/credit card fare machines that are appearing station to station, to the vast improvement in communication, through signage, on everything from construction plans to temporary closings and station bypass shuttles.  Still, my favorite thing about CTA thus far is to get on a train and actually MOVE!  This is what trains are supposed to do.  The reason they’re above or below the city streets, on dedicated tracks, is to defy car traffic and get you from one point to another without impediment.  I took great satisfaction in passing all of the slowed cars, stuck in traffic, on the Kennedy as I made my way to O’Hare with only the occasional scheduled stops to slow us down.  After all of these years slogging along on the Blue Line, it felt exhilarating, almost dangerous to be speeding along at 50 mph as we were.

Ron Huberman and his department deserve a lot of credit for this amount of progress in such a short time. I’m looking forward to seeing more of these improvements in the near future.

The latest bloodletting technique being applied is Bus-Rapid-Transit (BRT).

Somebody please stop the nation’s mayors from traveling to other cities, because every time they do, they come back with dumb ideas. I know this coming from Madison, because every time the mayor came back from a trip, all of the sudden Madison had to have a river walk, or trolley buses, or four-season elevated walkways, or roundabouts. It was always a unique feature, innovated somewhere else, that they wished to facsimile in their own city no matter how locally inapplicable, or absurd it was. What’s always so irritating is that these mayor’s act (and may truly believe) that they’ve stumbled on some ingenious solution that has eluded everyone else–they’re own “a-ha moment.” What they NEVER do is logically assess these brilliant innovations within the context of the region they’re visiting to see if they’re truly transferable to the cities they govern. Mayor Daley’s fixation with BRT apparently comes from a visit to Curitiba, Brazil where dozens of other mayors from around the world had their own, personal revelations about BRT. So let’s compare the two cities:

• CHICAGO 606 km2, population: 2.9m, with 9.5m in the greater metro area
• CURIBITA 431 km2, population: 1.6 m, with 3.2m in the greater metro area
• Both cities have comparable population densities, with Chicago’s a bit higher.
• Brazil imports a little over 40% of it’s oil, Chicago imports 100% of it’s oil
• Per capita automobile ownership in the U.S. is NINE TIMES that of Brazil

It doesn’t take an urban and regional planning expert to see that BRT might be a good fit for Curibita, but in Chicago, the glass slipper doesn’t quite fit the step sister. The central tenet of BRT is that the city takes designated streets and squishes automobile traffic into one or two fewer lanes, leaving one or two lanes completely free for bus traffic to zoom through. In Curibita, with infinitely fewer cars to deal with, this squishing is not so painful. In Chicago, having twice the city population and three times the metropolitan population of Curibita, commuting in and out of a city area only 50% larger than Curibita’s, how on Earth are they going to squish the nine-times as many cars into fewer lanes? Chicagoans are desperately incompetent at staying in their lanes as it is. Reducing this already constricted available lane area can only result in road rage replacing gunshot deaths as the number one cause of homicide in this city. The middle finger will look like a grandmother’s embrace, compared to the intense hostility BRT will cause.

BRT also includes a feature where buses will trigger traffic signals, depending on traffic conditions, to turn green as the bus approaches the intersection. It did not escape my attention that directly next to the “light control” and bus diagram in the RedEye, sat an unrelated article entitled, “2 Injured as Car Crashes Into Bus.” In Curitiba, it might be an ingrained, cultural behavior to respect and obey traffic lights, but in Chicago, this priority green-lighting for buses is going to result in traffic-gnarling mayhem at best and countless collisions with cars trying to exit Lakeshore Drive or turning right. These bus drivers practically froth at the mouth as it is. Can you imagine how maniacal they’ll be when they know upcoming lights are changing green for them as they approach? The CTA will have to buy thousand of gallons of Windex just to get the pedestrian residue off of their windshields. And how much money is the city going to spend on enforcement to keep people out of these “free” lanes?

The biggest problem I have with this whole bloodletting bus boondoggle is that it arises from a $153 million grant from the Federal government. After enduring endless pandering from the CTA, on every bus ride, telling riders over the loud speaker about the terrifying consequences that will result if the state did not acquiesce to Chicago’s shakedown for emergency funds to prevent fare hikes and route cancellations, it really galls me that $153 million dollars is being squandered on such an ineffective, inconsequential program that doesn’t even begin to address the comprehensive overhaul the entire CTA needs. This is ongoing proof that collecting money locally, through the Federal income tax, sending it to Washington and then getting it back in bite-sized chunks, for Federally-specified uses is a horribly inefficient way to run a country. Of course there isn’t much of a chance that the CTA would have used $153 million much more effectively.

Lastly, this whole notion that Daley is going to “punish” drivers and “reward” mass transit users is entirely the wrong approach to solving commuter problems, especially at this point in time. That logic would be acceptable if we had a glistening, ample, model train and bus system that ran empty of passengers throughout the day. But the CTA is NOT in stellar form, it is in a terrible state of operation–run down and crowded, with passengers having to wait for three or four buses or trains to pass by their stops, at peak hours, before one that isn’t completely full finally arrives. How are these “punished” drivers, who finally decide to comply with Daley’s unrealistic transit fantasies going to be “rewarded” once they give up their automobile commuting? Their reward will be long waits, almost unbearable crowding and even worse traffic jams on the bus routes not outfitted with these open lanes and automatic green lights.

Recognize reality and fix the ailing mass transit system you have FIRST. Clean up the buses, trains and stations. Forget about cosmetic station makeovers for now and just fix the tracks and upgrade the train cars and buses. Get the system ready to function efficiently, with an anticipated increase in ridership and THEN punish automobile commuters. Right now all of us, whether a car driver or mass transit user, are being punished by the terribly neglected state of transportation in Chicago. Any chance for true reform at CTA becomes derailed with these tactics to throw jaw-dropping amounts of money at ill-conceived solutions to misdiagnosed problems until the temporary outrage that Daley is forced to confront dies down before the next CTA mishap arises. For a transit weary public, the bloodletting endures with no end in sight.

It should also be mentioned that when surveyed, the citizens of Curitiba overwhelmingly preferred light-rail when given the hypothetical choice between bus transit and trains.

After months of unsuccessful job searching, I had just started a temp assignment at the Park Hyatt Chicago, on Michigan Avenue–which eventually became a permanent job (for a year). I had boarded the ill-fated train, having transferred from the Blue Line, at the Jackson station. Being my first day on the job, I made sure that I left myself plenty of time to arrive at the Red Line Chicago stop, so that I could get coffee at Argo and begin my assignment at 9:00am. But as so often happens with the CTA, planning means nothing and there is no amount of time cushion you can give yourself to guarantee on-time arrival.

The first mistake I made was getting into a car filled with a diabolically putrid stench. Stupid me–the dozens of people standing aboard, with their shirts pulled up over their mouth and nose should have tipped me off. Once the doors closed behind me it was too late. I would start my first day at the Park Hyatt having suppressed my gag reflex on a train about to stall for an hour beneath the Chicago River. As the train lurched from the Lake Street platform, I scanned the train car so that I might locate the source of the awful smell. It appeared to emanate from a sleeping, homeless man, who had defecated in his trousers. Little did I know that this was not to be the only evacuation I would experience on this ride.

The first subway systems I ever rode on were in Japan, Germany, Paris and London respectively. They were all pretty much equal in cleanliness, efficiency, noiselessness and comfort. Having grown up in Wisconsin, I didn’t even know Chicago had a train system. When I first moved here nearly four years ago, I was amazed at how extensive the “El” truly was. I loved that I could shuttle from Madison to O’Hare quite easily and then take the Blue Line almost to my doorstep in Wicker Park (the glorified slum I formerly lived in). What completely shocked me, however was how completely distressed and mechanically dysfunctional the whole system was. The appalling state of disrepair the Chicago train system is in would be comical if thousands of people didn’t depend on it. I can’t even begin to describe how run down, filthy, undependable and sad it is. I can only imagine what European and Japanese tourists must think as they take in the crumbling tunnel walls, the murky station atmospheres, the deafening sound made by the crude train car suspensions screeching against the primitive tracks and the completely arbitrary schedules by which the trains arrive and depart. Until I became inured to the third world feel of the Chicago CTA, I was constantly riding the train in a state of semi-bemusement mixed with stunned speechlessness. I would guess that there is a level of incompetence, corruption and mismanagement at the CTA that is impossible to comprehend and even more impossible to eradicate.

Back to my evacuation story…

So, as it frequently happens, the Red Line train I was on came to stop, with the tiresome, barely-audible announcement that the train was “momentarily delayed as we wait for signals ahead” or something on that order. Usually these delays last no more than five minutes–ten to fifteen minutes on a bad day. After about fifteen minutes, when the train shut down its interior lighting and ventilation, we all knew something much more serious was up. What that was remained a mystery to the passengers, as our conductor said nothing about the delay. So there we sat, in a dark tunnel, with no lights, not knowing when we’d ever take a breath of air that wasn’t contaminated with fecal matter.

It is moments like these when you get a small glimpse into the unsettling realm of social disorder and anarchy. I was furious that especially after 9/11, there was NO emergency drill in place, no public safety exercise instituted to inform the passengers what action they should take. We were left entirely to our own devices without even an explanation as to what was going on. After a half hour, some “naughty” passengers, undoubtedly fed up with breathing the foul air, opened the connecting doors and moved into the next train car. I immediately followed, feeling a bit of a rush from this act of deviance. As I sat down again, I started to sweat the fact that my cushion of time to get to my new job was coming to an end. Furthermore, being underneath the Chicago River, I had no cell phone signal to call my new employer to inform them of my whereabouts. This was obviously a problem for others as well. The solution was found in the cell phone of a woman fortunate enough to have the only carrier who offered service underground–U.S. Cellular. I called my temp agency, who seemed to be privy to news we unfortunate passengers were not: Apparently there was a small electrical fire on the tracks a number of stops ahead of us. This information would have been nice to know earlier being that every passenger would have evacuated the train within five minutes of it stalling rather than sitting stupidly in the dark for an hour, not knowing what to do. As we neared an hour of waiting, wondering and some panic, two thug-like characters started muttering loudly, “Fuck CTA man, I want my two dollars back!” Admittedly, in other circumstances, I would have felt a little intimidated by these hulking guys with their sagging jeans, black-hooded sweatshirts over baseball caps and gang-like postures. But in this scenario, their aggressive, anti-establishment attitudes mirrored exactly what I was feeling. They stood up, pulled the emergency knob of the doors and shouted, “Fuck this shit, we’re outta here.” With that, they climbed onto the ledge which ran along the subway wall and scaled off to the next station. I was embarrassed at my own timidity. Was this who I was–a compliant sheep? I had always fancied myself a rebel who eschewed conformity and here I was this coward who failed to take action when the circumstances beckoned. I looked around at everyone else. We all mused together at the audaciousness of our fellow thugs. I was really getting outraged though at the arrogance of the CTA to presume that we would all just sit indefinitely in a decrepit, junky, stalled train car. This was their fault, not ours. We paid our taxes, we paid our fares. Who the hell did the city think it was to just leave us like this–abandoned, in the dark–stranded. Suddenly, a fire of my own was ignited. I stood up, refusing to let Chicago rob what little dignity it hadn’t already taken from me. I pulled myself out of the train, onto the tunnel ledge and set foot towards the Grand station. My protest was contagious. I was followed by several other people and even a little, old lady in her eighties who burst out, “I’m not sitting here any longer!” I helped her up and guided her along the ledge. Of course none of us were stupid enough to risk electrocuting ourselves on the tracks, so we continued scaling along the dark grimy wall. As we passed the train conductor, he looked at us with great alarm, but acquiesced to our rebellion. Shortly thereafter we heard the muddled announcement, “You may exit the train at this time and make your way carefully to the next platform.” Finally, the CTA had given its official instructions. For the militantly obedient citizens still sitting on the train, with the unconscious homeless strewn amongst them, I imagine that announcement was received with great appreciation–Our civil disobedience was now sanctioned by an agent of the CTA. As the rest of us continued our march towards the Grand Avenue platform, it was heartwarming to witness how our fellow humans, people who might not ever speak to each other under normal circumstances, all banded together to help the old lady. The line of us had reached a large traffic signal, which blocked our slow migration to Earth’s surface. I swung around the signal and gripped it tightly as I held my arm out for her. Another passenger, held the spirited old woman, who knew exactly what she needed to do. She grabbed my hand, let go of the other person’s hand and let herself swing to the other side of the signal. There was no stopping this triumphant, Chicago battle ax, who had probably suffered through much worse, living in this city all of her life.

We eventually reached Grand and stepped up into the cold Chicago air. I’m not ashamed to say that I felt a little bit like Kate Winslet in Titanic as she crawled onto that life boat. I had yet another experience of conquering Chicago adversity under my belt and a great story to tell. The train evacuation made the news and I was proud to say that I had led my own small contingent of rebels off that infamous train.

So now, this week, a year later, it’s happened again. The exact same thing. And it was handled in exactly the same way–no directive from CTA conductors or platform employees, no understandable announcements or evacuation drills. Just a bunch of fare-paying citizens sitting in the dark, for an hour, left to their own devices. What came next was an outrage. Ron Huberman, director of the CTA, actually had the gall to criticize passengers who had the wherewithall to evacuate themselves from the defunct train. He claimed that “If those particular passengers had not self-evacuated, we could have gotten people out on trains and restored service much sooner.” He also tried to assert that the delay would have lasted only 25 minutes at the most. This begs the question: How long, exactly, are passengers supposed to sit in a dark tunnel, on a broken down train before the CTA informs them of Huberman’s imaginary PROPER procedure?” Who on Earth did he think he was to criticize passengers failed by his own system? Could I sit in my stalled car on the Eisenhower or Kennedy for 25 minutes until my cousin arrived to restore service to my car? Chicagoans are apparently regarded by city officials as cattle, whose time is worthless and whose conditions of transport need only meet the minimum standard. The National Transportation and Safety Board blasted the CTA last fall, after a derailment, due to inexcusable system-wide neglect, deferred maintenance and operational incompetence.

By the afternoon and upon getting all of the facts, Huberman relented, “In no way is the CTA pointing fingers at anyone but ourselves…” That is the attitude the CTA needs to have.

I do not understand how the CTA got to the state of total dilapidation it is currently in. The system has not expanded for over twenty years, yet ridership has increased enormously through the city’s recent trend of gentrification. Where is all of our fare money going, not to mention the federal funds it receives and the continuous drain on the state’s funding it causes? Why do station overhauls take two years when whole skyscrapers go up in the same amount of time? Why is wood still the material of choice for railroad ties? Why can’t Chicago run a proper transit system? Whatever the reason, I’ll be damned if I’ll let Ron Huberman shame me and others in the same situation for taking the initiative to look after themselves, just like we have to do for crime, potholes and all the other hardships living in a backwards city causes. My GOD! The State of Illinois had to ban smoking STATEWIDE before Chicago could bring itself to do it–the last of the major cities. Even Madison banned smoking years before Chicago. What do you expect though from a city that still doesn’t recycle?

When I first moved to Chicago, I remember commenting several times to co-workers about how awful the “El” was, but my opinions seemed to fall on deaf ears and some defensiveness. People here become unexpectedly patriotic about Chicago when you criticize any aspect of the city. I’ve learned that they’re hopelessly delusional, so I’ll say it again: The CTA is an appalling, third world system. It is astonishingly neglected and in a shocking state of disintegration. The delinquency of the city in its administration of this important public asset is an enormous slap in the face to the taxpayers of Chicago. The least the city could do is maintain the public transit system which provides people portage to and from their jobs. Imagine, in a city with the worst commute times in the nation, neglecting the only alternative it has to congested automobile transit.

Now that they’ve pointed their fingers at themselves, they’ve admitted they have a problem and can now begin the healing process.