How Do They Do It?

Yesterday morning I boarded the Union Pacific North Line at the Great Lakes Station in North Chicago, bound for the Ogilvie Transportation Center in the city, where I had a book signing (a rather successful one, but that's not the subject here). I parked in a numbered parking spot, as non-numbered spaces are reserved for regular commuters, of which there were about two dozen.

I've never been much of a commuter - for years I worked in my home office - but before I reached my destination, I found myself not envying those two dozen folks who make this trip daily. It took one hour and ten minutes to get downtown. By car, in steadily moving traffic, it takes maybe 45 minutes. Of course, driving into the city during business hours is a stupid idea unless you've got a couple of hours to fritter away.

What struck me as odd is that, unlike New York's Metro North, there is no such thing as an express train on the Union Pacific. Each train stops at each station from Kenosha, Wisconsin, all the way to downtown Chicago. Some trains will only run as far as the southern part of Lake County, just north of Cook, but they don't skip stations.

And here's the rub: While the Citicorp Building is above the train station and other buildings are nearby, many people who work in buildings further away have to get on a bus to get to work. That hour and 10 minutes can easily stretch out another half hour. And that's just one way. Chances are these people spend three hours a day just getting back and forth to work.

This experience made me remember the original Bob Newhart Show (which was set in Chicago), in which the opening credits depicted Bob kissing Suzanne Pleshette good-bye and leaving for work, walking, waiting at a train platform, switching trains, walking some more . . . I was a teenager at the time, but I remember saying to myself, How long does it take this poor man to get to work??? That's a lot of time.

Commuters have my utmost admiration. But I'm glad I work 3 miles down the road and can be there in 10 minutes.