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So this morning I’ve been reminiscing about Chicago and some of the things I tend to long for (in this case I was think about http://www.superdawg.com/ which is just some of the best dogs around) but you’ve brought back some memories of working near the American Girl store.
There’s 2 sides to the story I’m going to tell you. For background I was working just off of Michigan Avenue at Crain Communications, just around the corner from Water Tower Place. The American Girl store is located right there as well and, if you are unfamiliar, it is a doll store that crazy women drop thousands of dollars at so their daughters and the doll can look exactly alike. It’s really creepy IMO. Needless to say I’m not a big fan of being crowded in by insane mall women and their spoiled daughters but this is what would happen to me several days a week as I took the Michigan Ave bus south to catch the water taxi. Not only was the bus more often than not standing room only it was usually also filled with these lifeless dolls and women and children pushing through you like you don’t exist. This was one of the few public transit rides I truly despised.
Drunks on the train, psychotics on the buses, shifty eyed people, these never bother me so much. The crazy suburban moms however made me totally insane. Fortunately they didn’t seem to have the water taxi figured out so after riding several blocks I could depart them on my “escape boat” which would take me straight to my train at Union Station. I’m getting a warm fuzzy feeling right now just thinking about how fun the rest of that commute was. Bicycle/Walk to Train to Water Taxi to Bus – if I could have found a form of flight then I would’ve had every form of transit covered. Anyhow; onward to the flip side of the coin.
So while these women and little girls drove me crazy what I think is wonderful is the fact that they WERE ON A BUS. I mean, even if COTA routes were as accessible as we all hope they will become I think we are still a long way from convincing the suburban mom’s that taking the kids shopping in the Short North, to Polaris or Easton via bus is the best way to do it. However in many large cities this is not a consideration, you just do it.
That brings me to the final question, what do we need to do to bring COTA into the mainstream? Well, I think your example is one of the best ways Jeff. What else can we do?