CTA, St. Patricks' Day and Other Things that are Wrong With Chicago

So, this past Sunday I attended the South Side Irish Parade in honor of St. Patrick's Day, even though it was 8 days early. While getting to the parade wasn't too bad, although we were wrongly led to a bus we didn't want to take, it was leaving after the mess of a parade.

First of all, the parade itself was pretty boring. Luckily, I was with people who were new and interesting to talk to. I can understand why so many people are drunk so early at this event... it makes it bearable. There wasn't even any candy thrown!!! What kind of parade doesn't have candy?!?

It took two hours just to get from the apartment on Western where we were hanging out to the redline, where I had another 1.5 hour commute back to my apartment. Anyway... we started our trek by asking cops what the best way to get back to the redline was... the first few didn't know... the next ones told us to take Metra. As we walked to 107th, we ran into a line of cops on horses who wouldn't let us walk 20 ft to get to 107th... we didn't have cups to throw on the ground, we weren't drunk, but they wouldn't let us through!

So we trekked to the nearest Metra stop, and found out we'd have to wait an hour and a half just for a train to take us to downtown. So further north we walked to 103rd... where we caught a crowded bus after much too long a wait. What seemed like an eternity later, we arrived at the 95th Redline stop, to begin the long journey back to the North Side.

This is the question I pose to the CTA and the City of Chicago all together: Why the hell didn't you plan for this?!?! You had the police force out, why not the buses? Isn't the CTA supposed to be a great alternative to drinking and driving? There should have been buses leaving from Western express to the Redline stop every five minutes from 1/2 an hour after the parade ended... and then every-other train should have been running express until at least Roosevelt, if not further.

Get the drunk people out of the South Side and get them back to bed... I missed a supper that I was kinda looking forward to.

Stupid non-planning CTA.