METRA commute from Naperville (Chicago, Warrenville: showing, work, bars)

[PlayLikeAChampion2day]

Hi everyone,

I will be moving to Naperville in a few weeks and have read/heard that commuting to the city is a nightmare. Though I will most likely only be going to the city on weekends for the various activities, what is the average commute time (to say Wrigley Field) that I can expect. Also, any other ideas for a relatively quick commute would be greatly appreciated.

[aragx6]

If you're only going on the weekends you won't have major problems. Parking will be easy at the metra, it will take you just over an hour to get into the city and then to get to Wrigley field you'd walk about a half mile to the red line (less than 10 minute walk), go north and in about 15-20 minutes you'll be there.

It would probably be faster to drive though. Will you have a car?

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by aragx6

It would probably be faster to drive though. Will you have a car?

From Naperville to Wrigleyville? Are you kidding???

[aragx6]

On a weekend, If 290 is not backed up (I always check before I leave- even if it's like 10 a.m. or 9 p.m.) I don't see much reason it would take more than an hour fifteen or hour and a half to get up there.

Via public transit I would expect it to be closer to an hour and 45 min or 2 hours after you consider waiting for train/el etc.

[Steve-o]

The only time I go to Chicago is on the weekends, 88 to 290 to downtown at bare minimum (w/o the jams) takes 50 minutes. There have been times where its taken me a little over 2 hours to get downtown from Warrenville. On average its about 1 hour and 15 minutes just to get downtown.

[ahava]

Originally Posted by aragx6

Parking will be easy at the metra, it will take you just over an hour to get into the city and then to get to Wrigley field you'd walk about a half mile to the red line (less than 10 minute walk)

Or if you're really lazy like me you can walk two blocks to the Blue line and take that to the Red line.

[aragx6]

That is lazy! haha! But then if the weather is bad, I'm with ya.

[PlayLikeAChampion2day]

Thanks for the replies... I will have a car so it seems it may be best to just drive to the city.

On a completely unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good sports bar in the Naperville area? I'm a huge IU fan and while I realize there aren't many others like me in the area, I'd still like to find a place to toss a few back and watch some b-ball.

[Glamona]

You can always take Metra train from Naperville to Union Station (on Canal/Adams in downtown). It could take you from 35 min. (if you take express train for example at 8:24 a.m. during a week, you will be in Union station at 8:58 a.m.) to 1h 10 min. if you take local train that will stop on every stop.

From Union station you can take a bus.

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by PlayLikeAChampion2day

Thanks for the replies... I will have a car so it seems it may be best to just drive to the city.

On a completely unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good sports bar in the Naperville area? I'm a huge IU fan and while I realize there aren't many others like me in the area, I'd still like to find a place to toss a few back and watch some b-ball.

There are a lot of IU people in the area - too many for my taste as an Illini fan! Almost all bars will be showing Big Ten games when they're on (assuming that they have a DirecTV connection with the Big Ten Network).

The Foundry (behind Fox Valley Mall) is pretty good if you want to see as many sports at one time as possible since it has a giant wall of superlarge screen TVs (I believe that it used to be a movie multiplex, so it's a wall the size of 2 or 3 movie screens). Think of it as an unbranded ESPN Zone with an on-site OTB since it's very big and will be showing pretty much everything. It's definitely not intimate, though.

Features in downtown Naperville has a nice setup in terms of having lots of flat-panel TVs around the bar - it's a bit on the trendy side, particularly on weekend evenings where it looks more like a club.