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Old 01-13-2020, 12:14 PM
 
4,087 posts, read 3,223,257 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wase4711 View Post
This thread is not on population losses. The Trib doesn't hold back on articles of issues the city has, is currently facing and in the future. But I NEVER re ad one on Chicago getting dirtier and losing its stardom that it has achieved in tourism and their high opinions on the city.

Chicago NEVER will get the degree of dirtiness that Philly neighborhoods get as it has no real street-sweeping fir over a decade. A thread in their frump is on the mayor starting it back in 2023. But much to work out including buying trucks again. Philly accepts its grittiness. But claiming Chicago's increased? I still find odd ..... or any climes its getting dirtier.

Chicago's neighborhoods of green-frontage and no power-line poles blemishing fronts. Lessens its grittiness vs other cities too.
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Old 01-13-2020, 07:31 PM
 
11,289 posts, read 26,129,589 times
Reputation: 11355
Quote:
Originally Posted by clutchcity View Post
I spent most of my time downtown, Lincoln Park, riding the El to/from O’Hare, and all I have to say is that Chicago seems WAY grittier, and less clean, as compared to when I lived here.

Every El train smelled of marijuana and I was asked for money by handlers at least half a dozen times.

Did something fundamentally change in the city over the past 7 years that’s causing this?
No, of the areas you visited they are all more polished and cleaner than they were seven years ago. More "disneyfied" if anything and have lost some of their soul as they push the whole world class thing.

The one area that's changed you visited was the blue line to/from O'hare. That's dirtier and far busier and more annoying since the whole milwaukee ave area boomed.

I can't wait for the brand new blue line cars to start coming next year and to get the power supplies upgraded to run more trains.

You must have just had bad luck.
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Old 01-13-2020, 07:36 PM
 
11,289 posts, read 26,129,589 times
Reputation: 11355
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kmanshouse View Post
I have heard that the Blue line has gotten worse. I ride the Brown, and am relatively a new resident, and that line is just fine. But I have heard bad trends on the Blue, and I try to avoid the Red line south of about Jackson.

Overall, the homeless downtown seem about the same as before, I've worked downtown for 20 years.

Pot is up everywhere, pretty much. Not a fan of that movement.
The blue line has gotten worse in two ways:

1) it's far busier than it has been in the past, to the point of being completely overcrowded for hours every day.

2) It's got about the oldest cars on the entire system now after they started rolling out the brand new 5000 series cars to the Red, Purple, Pink and Green lines. The Orange and Brown have the second oldest cars and the blue line cars just suck. I think having those old legacy cars when most others have brand new cars makes them stick out even more. The new cars for the Blue are set to be rolled out next year and they're upgrading the power supply on the O'hare branch as well to start running more trains. I think that will have a large impact.
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Old 01-14-2020, 09:57 AM
 
Location: ✶✶✶✶
15,218 posts, read 30,486,095 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago60614 View Post
The blue line has gotten worse in two ways:

1) it's far busier than it has been in the past, to the point of being completely overcrowded for hours every day.

2) It's got about the oldest cars on the entire system now after they started rolling out the brand new 5000 series cars to the Red, Purple, Pink and Green lines. The Orange and Brown have the second oldest cars and the blue line cars just suck. I think having those old legacy cars when most others have brand new cars makes them stick out even more. The new cars for the Blue are set to be rolled out next year and they're upgrading the power supply on the O'hare branch as well to start running more trains. I think that will have a large impact.
One thing the Blue Line cars (well, many of them) have is this semi-enclosed seat at the end that I call the sleeper cabin, since it's usually occupied by a bum or a junkie nodded out or, in one case recently, shooting up on the train. Yeah, they actually came and pulled him off.

Another time, I went over and saw that it was empty and there was a cigarette taped to the window. Like some sort of Starbucks drive-thru line "pay it forward" for the decidedly non-yuppie set.
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Old 01-14-2020, 11:02 AM
 
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
4,627 posts, read 3,206,088 times
Reputation: 3896
I have not seen much from the OP, clutch city, since they started this thread. I wonder if they have any further comments, based on contributions made to this forum? Maybe riding in the front cars of the L train could lesson potential issues from passengers? Maybe take a different train or method of public transportation, if possible?? I do drive a lot when I come down. But I've certainly taken buses and L trains. At this point, I haven't encountered anything I would classify as "unbearable." I'm a pretty patient guy, and all. But nothing has really taken me over the edge (public transport, the looks of the neighborhoods). Perhaps because I'm a frequent visitor, versus a resident?
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Old 01-14-2020, 11:49 AM
 
Location: ✶✶✶✶
15,218 posts, read 30,486,095 times
Reputation: 10851
Quote:
Originally Posted by Master Jay View Post
I have not seen much from the OP, clutch city, since they started this thread. I wonder if they have any further comments, based on contributions made to this forum? Maybe riding in the front cars of the L train could lesson potential issues from passengers? Maybe take a different train or method of public transportation, if possible?? I do drive a lot when I come down. But I've certainly taken buses and L trains. At this point, I haven't encountered anything I would classify as "unbearable." I'm a pretty patient guy, and all. But nothing has really taken me over the edge (public transport, the looks of the neighborhoods). Perhaps because I'm a frequent visitor, versus a resident?
You don't interact with other people in the open very much in his city, unless you try to. I know that place, pretty well actually. There, public transportation by and large is for the Washington Generals of society, so to speak, or you're too old to drive and don't have someone else to drive you. You don't just walk along the street the way you do in Chicago. Even in the city core, sidewalks are narrow, sometimes crumbling and sometimes disappear altogether. You drive from one location, one parking lot to another. Then you drive home.

When you live in a place like that and then you come here, yeah, it's gonna be a bit of a shock.

The visitors from New York or San Francisco are going to come here with a different perspective than people from Houston.



Seriously, Jay - shortly before I moved up here, I had some restaurant owner in the Montrose area west of downtown Houston follow me for several blocks in his truck because he thought it was weird (as he put it to me before calling the police) that I would be walking on a sidewalk in what's supposed to be the fourth largest city in America, with a camera. It was an event that crystallized the mentality I talk about here, refined and distilled to 99.8% purity.
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Old 01-14-2020, 12:44 PM
 
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
4,627 posts, read 3,206,088 times
Reputation: 3896
jfre81, well we shall take some shots when I come down. That reminds me: I have to call to see when my equipment is ready for pick up. We can stay off the Blue Line. I'll drive!
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Old 01-14-2020, 01:11 PM
 
Location: ✶✶✶✶
15,218 posts, read 30,486,095 times
Reputation: 10851
Quote:
Originally Posted by Master Jay View Post
jfre81, well we shall take some shots when I come down. That reminds me: I have to call to see when my equipment is ready for pick up. We can stay off the Blue Line. I'll drive!
Sounds good, and odds are I'll make it into Mke sometime in the next month or two.



As an aside, Houston - where the OP comes from - is where my street/urban photo project got started. It was partly conceived as a means to show people there what the city actually looks like outside their cars.

Most Chicago city residents would think of this nearby Milwaukee/Belmont area with the drive-thru Taco Bell and PNC Bank, Walgreens with a big parking lot, BP station on the corner of Pulaski etc. as suburban car-centric sprawl, and yet by Sun Belt standards it's tight, dense, walkable urbanity, It's just a different world down south.
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Old 01-14-2020, 04:44 PM
 
4,857 posts, read 7,588,852 times
Reputation: 6394
Mari-juh-wana is ruining the city!!!
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Old 01-14-2020, 05:02 PM
 
Location: ✶✶✶✶
15,218 posts, read 30,486,095 times
Reputation: 10851
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dport7674 View Post
Mari-juh-wana is ruining the city!!!
Yeah, that's probably pretty low on the list of problems over here.
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