What’s your favorite car ever? The Chicago Tribune asked this question on Google Plus. My favorite car ever is the traditional 3200-series CTA train cars. I’m not even joking. There’s plenty of room. Lots of headroom, you can even stand! Always a chauffeur to drive. No maintenance or upkeep. No gas. Community-based. You get to …
Connected cars talking to each other through tail lights? Engadget reports: Smarter headlights could guide you out of a rainstorm, but intelligent tail lights could enable communication between vehicles. At least, that’s the idea behind a collaborative Connected Vehicle Safety project between Intel and National Taiwan University. Its purpose is so that you’ll be able …
Wow! Chicago. City of the future! Only if Chicago’s subway still looked like that. Well, actually, it does. Maybe they should replace a chunk of State Street with large sheets of glass, so we can get this perpective. You can get this Vintage postcard of the Red Line in Chicago’s CTA subway on eBay. Front …
Vintage postcard of cutaway view of Chicago CTA subway Read More »
Take a CTA train, have six artist groups each decorate the interior of a car, let passengers ride the train for one night; you have the premise for “Art on Track” which has run one night a year for the past four or five years. This year’s set of cars had solid, focused themes. — …
The suburban train line system in Chicago recently started a new policy of having a “Quiet Car” on every Metra train. These “Quiet Cars” have signage to indicate that you are on a “Quiet Car” and thus you are to be quiet. If you happen to miss these signs Metra says, “There will also be …
A library and art gallery on every Metra train’s ‘Quiet Car’ Read More »
My twin brother has not ridden a Chicago public transit train since 1996. Over IM I shared with him 11 things that have changed on the CTA since 1996: spudart: 1) They no longer take tokens 2) There is no conductor in the back of the train that opens and closes the doors 3) People …
11 things that have changed on the CTA since 1996 Read More »
Dear flickr friends, please name one of the roadblock pillars in this photo by leaving a note on my Quincy train station image. Leaving a note is as easy as 1,2,3: 1) Sign into flickr. 2) Go to the photo. 3) Go up to “Actions” and pick “Add a note.” Tom already named the second …
Name a roadblock pillar at the Quincy CTA station Read More »
What discoveries happen when you throw a paper airplane from an elevated CTA train platform? I had so many fun surprises that they couldn’t fit into one story! The one story ended up making little baby stories. Eight of ’em! So spread their surprisey goodness across the web, you can read them in eight different …
8 surprises from throwing a paper airplane off a train platform Read More »
This morning I exclaim out loud, “Wow, my train station is so nice now! It’s so open and big!” I look around amazed as other commuters pass me by. I think, “Gee, aren’t these people happy that our station is finally done with construction?” For the past three or four years we’ve walked by raw …
Every day I’ll print something colorful, make a paper airplane, and throw it off a Chicago elevated train platform. I wanted something quick to print out, so I went to my photo archives and pulled this colorful HDR shot Chicago L: Randolph Stop. I love the color in this shot and I knew I was …
photo credit: Vera Gavrilovic, “Bumpy ride“ Dropping iPhones, people running to catch the train, stuffing each other to get each to pack onto a train. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) should take all surveillance camera footage and make a special youtube highlights video. I know, privacy rights. This won’t actually happen. But it would be …
