I got on the Edens southbound, immediately south of where it was closed. There was six feet of water under the Winnetka Road overpass. A semi got stuck.
A SEMI!?!
jarbabyj? My boss has his secretary write his emails for him from dictatapes. Of course, it has to be from his computer, so he is on the ‘from’ line. Of course, she has to do it when he’s not at his desk.
Omigod, Abe, you work for the Pointy-Haired Boss!!
Seriously, I know I’ve seen this one in Dilbert. Or something practically identical.
So which one are you - Dilbert, or Wally? 
Where’re matt_mcl and his Mass Transit Cheerleading Sqaud[sup]TM[/sup] when these nightmares go down, huh? 
(I kid. I wish mass transit were an option where I live. But when things go wrong…wow. Such inconvenience to so many people!)
Your mass transit goes down when there’s RAIN?
Snort. Under the 1998 ice storm, the worst natural disaster in a large number of years, most of the city was out of power for about three weeks. They called in the ARMY. But the metro was only out for about a hundred hours in that time.
Buncha pansies.
The Eisenhower wasn’t bad at all by the time I got there - around 8:45 coming in from Schaumburg. I was at the office by 9:30.
You folks in Chicago should look into a DC area institution. Informal carpooling, aka slugging.
Every morning I pull into the commuter lot near my house and pick up two people. They’re different people every day. I don’t know anything about them except that they are also going to Crystal City in Arlington, 25 miles away.
These two people give me the three I need to take the HOV lanes (and thus go an even 70 mph all the way to the office.) They save the $7 round trip bus fare. Everybody wins.
In the 25 years people have been doing this, there hasn’t been one reported crime. This system is therefore safer in this regard than the very safe public transportation system here.
I realize this wouldn’t work everywhere, but it’s great here.
If we could broaden this to a general CTA rant, I’d like to provide a hearty FUCK YOU! to all the bus drivers who will actually drive along the curb while approaching the stop (when there’s no traffic behind it to force it to pull over), just to see us scatter from the tsunami coming at us.
Public transportation?
I think I saw a bus a few months ago…
I bet you drop them off at the slug stop across the street from where I work.
Yes, please. I’d like some too.
I’m in Gateway North, Jeff. Right across the street from you, IIRC from the SWAT team thread.
Yet another damn contractor.
I don’t think the problem is so much the rain as the flooding. I know at least one underground parking garage was flooded seriously from this last series of storms, not to mention the flooded viaducts and so on. It may be called the “el” for elevated, but it’s also partially underground, in the heart of the downtown area. Most all of the lines come together there, and any north-south el traffic in the city will have to go underground to continue the route.
Dang, thought I’d finally earned my first Pit thread. From an Admin, no less.
Oh, well.
Here is a map of the bus route I wanted to get on two days ago (it’s a .pdf file, if that makes a difference). Problem was, both bike racks were already in use at Beach and Bolsa, so mine wouldn’t fit. My choices were to wait around for twenty minutes for the next bus (which may or may not be able to accommodate me), or just start riding north, and let the next bus catch me up a little closer to my destination (Beach and Lincoln). I didn’t have anything to read, and it was hot, so I decided to ride.
It’s a good five miles from Bolsa to Lincoln, but I didn’t have to stop for anything except traffic lights. Whereas the bus had to stop for traffic lights, railroad tracks, and just about every bus stop along the route. I beat the driver by three minutes, and was across the street ordering a chocolate shake at Rally Burgers by the time the bus pulled up.
It’s almost enough to make me forswear the bus altogether, and just pedal wherever I go.
Why a duck?
Who is Al?
Gee, and I decided to spend this week in Vegas and missed the Chicago monsoon. My heartfelt sympathies to all my fellow Chi-towners.
Of course, I shudder to think what my desk is going to look like tomorrow.
Oh, and jarbabyj? It sounds like you live in my neighborhood; I’m just north of Wilson between Damen & Western.
Oh, I see. Sorry, I wasn’t aware of the scope of the problem. I apologize for my flippant remarks. I understand Prague was having lots of problems with the same.
A number of years ago, a similar flash flood filled up the Decarie Expressway and a number of metro stations here.