Reverse commute / Rush hour to NW side (Chicago, Norridge: home, authority)

[wunderkidchi]

I recently moved to Chicago (Norridge area, still a Chicago address) from WNY and work the night shift in the loop. Driving in at around 10:30pm on the Kennedy takes only 20 minutes. Coming home at around 6:45am is terrible and it takes triple that.

It seems as if the traffic going out of the city is WORSE when i look at the inbound side. Anyone else notice this? Although, they do have the express lanes open on the inbound side at this time.

I actually get home faster if I take the Eisenhower West and get off on 1st ave / RT-171 and take that all the way to home but there is also traffic that way at the city limits.

When I look at these routes, around 7am the outbound traffic seems worse than the inbound traffic on both the Kennedy and Eisenhower. Isn't this ironic? I would think it would definitely be the other way around.

[chet everett]

The toll authority and the UIC traffic project track volumes of cars. I think the total net commute is still greater into the city, but not by a whole lot. Various spots on the express/tollways get choked up and the distortion is hard to account for. There a lot of people using surface streets too -- most of those are lot heaver inbound AM and outbound PM -- the commuters to towns that border Chicago don't bother with the expressways...

[CarolinaBredChicagoan]

It's been said many times on this board, but there really is no such thing as a reverse commute in Chicago. There are many people headed burbs-to-city and many headed city-to-burbs. There are only a few breather periods on major expressways.