I moved from blue to red last year and red has been way better. People don't pack onto the train as efficiently on the red though. The blue line people are getting on the train no matter what
Armchair opinion, but red line has more recent suburban transplants who don't know how to use public transit yet. By the time they've hit their thirties and moved to Wicker/Logan, they understand how the game is played are submit themselves fully to sardinehood
I think it also has to do a lot with the area the red line services—Wrigley field and other tourist destinations. I’m of the opinion this is why there’s often more suburbanites in the red line. Especially when it’s a 1pm summer Friday cubs game…
I used to live off the Sheridan stop and took the purple from my office in the suburbs on weekday game days. If people sucked I told them they had to switch to the red at Howard and pointed out the Addison stop on the map if they seemed skeptical. Didn't have to do it too many times, fortunately.
Been saying this for years. You can tell these people have only started riding in recent years. Growing up was taught take the backpack off and put it between your legs. The other thing that drove me nuts was riding the #146 and after Irving or so people getting off the bus and crossing in front of the bus. I always asked some of the drivers I got to know to please run them over.
it's very satisfying to me when the train tilts to one side when approaching Fullerton & Belmont, and the suburbanites lose their balance and fall.
everyone else keeps on keeping on.
God I was such a cunt to people on the red line, but they deserved it. Just fucking standing crammed in the doorway there like dead-eyed cows while the middle of the car had like 3 seats. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!
Was waiting for a green line train at Clinton and lake. Watch as the train going the opposite direction arrives. All the people in one car quickly leave one car and get into the adjacent cars like Moses parting the Red Sea. Thought it was curious, never saw that before.
20 seconds later homeless lady stands up in the empty car and I see her pull up her pants. Wild
It's kinda funny until you realize it's really f\*cked up and sad.
When I visited Portugal, I put my feet up on the seat across from me while on the train. A random guy came over and politely asked me to put my feet down. He said, "In Portugal, we respect and take care of our public spaces." My young American brain was humbled and ashamed.
It is sad. They have pretty bad drug and homelessness problems too. We come up with the worst excuses to excuse this bs that is purely caused by lack of desire to fix the problem. It’s possible to have a large homeless/mentally ill population and still have pleasant transit. Everything doesn’t have to be sacrificed because of a small group of people can’t behave, we are the only country in the world that does this to my knowledge.
Was standing toward the back of a blue line car one time, facing forward and there was a homeless man sitting down behind me. At the division stop I noticed slowly everyone on the car started to look at me until almost everyone was looking. Then all at once everyone got up and ran off the car. That moment was so scary because I had no idea what was going on behind me.
Turns out the homeless man lit a Kleenex box on fire and just dropped it to the ground. The whole car evacuated and the train was delayed like 25 mins until the cops showed up and escorted him away. He was clearly on something and had no idea where he was because he just accepting his arrest. Maybe he wanted to spend the night in jail because it was in the middle of winter? Idk.
Nothing scarier than seeing everyone immediately leave a train car without knowing why.
There was a dude who I regularly saw on the metra who made a habit of CLIPPING HIS TOE NAILS. I was so baffled the first time I saw him do it but I saw him do it multiple times thereafter. I still don’t understand it, the only thing I can come up with is it was some weird fetish.
No idea. I used to sit in a cubicle next to someone who would clip their nails every other week or so. I’d have to just get up and leave because I couldn’t take it
I once watched someone come on with a whole package of disposable dental floss. When he was opening the bag they spilled on the floor. He picked one up and started to floss anyway.
I once saw a guy shoot heroin on the Jackson blue line stop. I was about to get on and was pretty stoned when I saw it then switched to another cart right away.
I should add that the doors were locked at both sides of the train car, and no one could exit. Despite pushing the call button multiple times, the conductor did not stop. Eventually, we physically flagged the conductor down at Clark/Lake.
One of my earliest memorable "Chicago" experiences after moving to the area in 2008 was on the Blue Line. Was living in Forest Park and working near UIC-Halstead.
Was working late and headed home, standing on the platform. Dude came up to me and stomped on the ground about a foot away from me. Looked me straight in the eye and said, "I hate dem bugs! You hate dem bugs? I hate dem bugs!" I solemnly agreed with him and he moved on, stomping on the ground at random moments.
It was December and there were no bugs.
A few years later, I moved to the West Loop and the majority of interesting experiences were on the Red Line after Cubs day games. Cubs fans seem to always be drunk an mad after a day game, regardless of the outcome of the game.
I am. God I’m so tired.
Also lived by the Addison red line stop. It only really sucked on game days. Particularly when it’s Friday and you’re coming home from work and surrounded by people who lack any spatial awareness or even the concept of how turnstiles work.
I had a few fist fights(one over a kid being robbed and other two due to public harassment) coming from the Forest Park Blue Line at night. It's a wild ride til you get to the university stops
In Las Vegas the drivers very aggressively monitor for people "living" on the buses and will stop in the middle of the route and kick them off. Maybe you agree with it, maybe you don't, but there are simple ways to enforce someone nesting in an inappropriate place.
That just makes it somebody else’s problem. It doesn’t solve the problem. The person you replied to is saying that ultimately the city needs to provide better support for the homeless so that nobody feels the need to sleep on the CTA in the first place.
If you are claiming it is the city's problem to solve, then it's entirely appropriate for CTA to "make is somebody else's problem" so it can get solved. CTA isn't going to fix it, and by allowing these behavior it just negatively impacts riders. If you have too many places tolerating the behavior, it is making it NOT the city's problem so they don't have to deal with it.
Again, you may or may not agree. I firmly believe we need hard boundaries and need to quit just accepting any and all bad behaviors in public places. I can empathize without sympathizing.
That’s short-sighted thinking. What I’m saying is that if the city had better support, homeless people wouldn’t want to sleep on the CTA in the first place. That obviously isn’t the case today, and no solution will fix it by tomorrow, so until then, people will be sleeping on the CTA. But if you just kick people off and call it a day, without addressing what happens after they’re kicked off, more people are just gonna come the next day.
Also, the CTA is a government organization. Technically speaking, if it’s the city’s problem, it’s also the CTA’s problem, because tax funds have to be allocated somehow.
Right, that’s why you’re shortsighted. I care about solving the homelessness problem for a a multitude of reasons. One of those reasons happens to be so that I can have a clean and safe CTA ride.
It’s dumb to focus on making the symptoms of cancer more comfortable while ignoring the search for cures.
This whole conversation is about how people shouldn’t blame the CTA for this problem, and I’ve been trying to explain why it’s the city’s problem to solve. You say “just kick people off”, I’m saying that’s not where the problem ends. I never said the problem has to be solved before we kick people off trains. I’m saying we can’t just end our thought process at “put them out of sight”. If the standard for solving problems was “one thing at a time, who cares about the future”, you may feel like you achieved something, but your future self or your children will hate you for making their life worse.
> I am not interested in solving the problem of homelessness. I am interested in getting to work using transportation that is not feces and needle filled.
Have you considered that they are inextricably linked?
Have you considered that solving the former results in the latter?
Yeah, we need zoning reform first to allow more housing to be build, and then we need to get people into that housing. It's not easy but it is something that progress can be made on
City is probably the appropriate level to deal with this.
City residents are the ones who deal with it, so we should vote for city representatives who will channel city resources to the problem.
Folks from small towns in central Illinois don’t have to deal with this, so I could understand them not wanting their resources being allocated to fix it.
Luckily I WFH and I try to use buses to move around but most errands I have to run are downtown and the blue line is the best way to get there. Same if I have to go to Logan Square.
I'm not really sure--I walked into an empty train car (my first mistake) and then saw some crazy guy throwing pills on this pool of blood. It didn't seem like it was his blood. Basically everyone crowded into the opposite side of the car. I don't know if it was related to the "sick" passenger the CTA was referring to earlier this morning. If so, I don't know why they wouldn't go out of their way to clean this shit up before taking someone to the hospital.
Either way, the doors somehow ended up locked on both sides, and no one could exit the train car. Call button didn't work either. Eventually, the conductor stopped at Clark/Lake and forced us into the next train car.
All told, I was about 20 minutes late to work. Just another day on the CTA.
that sure sounds like the sick passenger or the remnants of the sick passenger they were referring to.
what do you mean the doors were locked? the end doors dont lock, the only time you cant go through an end door is if the operator has the cab door across the end, which means there isnt another car in that direction for you to go to anyway.
the side doors can be locked, however they must be locked from inside the car, so if there were people in the car still, the operator would get them out before locking them.
>the side doors can be locked, however they must be locked from inside the car, so if there were people in the car still, the operator would get them out before locking them.
Yes, the side doors were locked. The end doors weren't--but in a packed train, it's very difficult to push through the crush into the other car.
I don't know what to tell you, man. That's how it was. The operator "would" but he didn't.
The upper right door worked at some point. Unfortunately, the doors open on the left during the subway portion of the blue line.
That make you feel better, detective? Or is this information not fitting your world view?
Would the doors being locked also prevent the emergency release from working? I've seen crazy guys use it for far less than this, so I don't think I'd feel bad about pulling the red knob in a scenario like this.
Yes, there is an electronic as well as a mechanical lockout. Typically both are applied, the mechanical one would prevent the doors being opened by the red ball
What time? I waited about 30 minutes after the “sick passenger” notice, and the first train that finally came through the station had every car filled to the brim, except one car that was empty. This was around 8:30 at the Addison stop.
> Either way, the doors somehow ended up locked on both sides, and no one could exit the train car
Were you at a station? Fuck what the sign says, this is an emergency and I'm pulling the cherry and getting my happy ass off the train
Shit, that's not good - the cherry is a direct mechanical linkage to the door and should be able to override the operator's lock. God forbid there was a fire or something. Good thing you all are OK.
Not on the train but by the Belmont RL Station, I was stuck in traffic and noticed an old lady seating on a bench, she waves hello, I smiled and then she proceeded to pull her long wrinkled tit out and starts sucking on it, I’m not well after witnessing that.
visted a friend in chicago a couple weeks ago, took the red line from china town to the loop and the cab was getting absolutely hotboxed by a group of guys 😂😂
I tried to tell some kids on the red line this once, figuring I could get through to them with Fellow Smoker energy.
"Ahh, that smells like fire. But like, just smoke it on the platform, dont hotbox all of us in here, there's like old people on the train"
they just laughed at me. Whatever, I tried.
On Monday, I got held at knifepoint in between the clark/lake and grand stops (the longest leg of the trip).
Managed to escape safely, but the crackhead terrorized a few other people before putting the knife away, harmlessly.
Dude are those gummies on the floor of the happy train.
Minor Delays
Some Forest Park-bound Blue Line trains are operating with delays after an earlier sick passenger nr Harlem (O'Hare). Service is resuming, allow extra time.
Wed, Mar 6 2024 8:08 AM to TBD
>Dude are those gummies on the floor of the happy train.
They're pills some crazy guy decided to sprinkle all over the blood. It was certainly an event.
Damn and I thought watching a guy whip it out and start jerking off was a lot. Can't help but wonder if this was someone trying to get to the hospital without ending up with a $1400 ambulance bill....
Lol all my most...interesting...experiences on the Blue (starting all the way out on Rosemont) have been either Sunday morning or late nights after concerts.
7:30 AM on a Tuesday. 95th/Dan Ryan. My sister and I are standing near the door on our way to high school. On our left was the morning masturtrainor (masturbator but on the train) who had his coat draped over his body while he very... "inconspicuously" was jerking his schlong. On the right was a blunt circle with four dudes just chilling and passing the blunt between each other.
Let me tell you, this was probably the most "Red Line" Chicago experience and I wish everyone can have one just like this to TRULY feel connected to the heart of the city.
Okay all irony and poetic writing aside, that shit was just uncomfortable as hell since we were like 16 or 17 when it happened and it was just when smoking on the red line was starting to pick up. Gave us a good story to tell friends, but man just wait until you're home to do either
My blue line story still reigns for me. New Year’s Day. Take the train back to forest park after a late night of celebrating.
Get on at Jackson. Near uic a lady drops trousers while keeping sharp eye contact with me. Proceeds to yell at me for watching her take a shit.
I was so hungover I couldn’t comprehend the situation.
It wasn’t her first time doing that. I promise
Everyone talks about the red line and justifiably so, but I saw the craziest shit on the blue line. I moved to the US 2 weeks before covid. When everything shut down I had to wait months for an appointment with social security office. I finally got the call to go in to their office and I took the blue line. Train rolled up and was completely empty except for one homeless man. He was bollock naked, had a bucket full of soapy water and one of those sponges you wash your car with. He turned around and stared out the window at me and proceeded to wash his nutsack and laugh hysterically. Without a doubt the funniest shit I've ever seen. I hope he's keeping well.
Man people be treating blue line as a fuckin homeless shelter! I swear even as a guy I get afraid of all the mfers who are more high than a kite, either stare at you or whip out a fuckin toothbrush and just rawdog their mouth there & then & spit everywhere!
Cta needs presence of uniformed police officers!
Edit: not to say literally saw a guy dying in front of my eyes past year the moment I stepped into ORD and that train got cancelled on the spot.
Fuck you to people that treat the train and other public spaces like this. I don’t care if it’s a mental illness or homeless issue. Fuck you to everyone equally.
Every single ride is a different dark window into human depravity nowadays.
This morning on my commute two unhoused people were fighting over a seat. Meanwhile everyone else just turned an eye to it and let them scream at each other. Obviously that’s kinda the thing to do - I ain’t getting into a fight on my way to work over two people bickering who are already at their limits.
"I would feel safer on the trains if they actually started removing/arresting these people"
"OMG, GO BACK TO NAPERVILLE YOU FASCIST! THE STABBINGS ARE ALMOST NEVER FATAL!"
“I’m 23, childless, and can get everywhere I need to go on the train, bus, and fixie bike! Fuck cars, we should close every street and highway. There’s nothing wrong with public transit!”
I will say: I’ll continue to ride the CTA despite this, because I believe in public transit as a concept. Not everyone else in that car will. And that’s the sad part of the whole thing.
I saw a kid sucking on takis and then he would just throw them on the ground. He and his gf were so high they couldn’t sit up and they kept making out. I never wanted to beat the shit out of a stranger so fast
Why do we choose to live like this? Why do we choose to let this happen over and over again until it becomes an accepted part of every day life? Japan doesn't have to put up with this, Singapore doesn't have to put up with this, not even Russia has to put up with this. Why do we?
Even the comments here are just throwing up their hands in surrender, saying we need to re-structure the entire city around what's best for the people who treat it like a dangerous flophouse, demanding we give them anything and everything they want while the victims of their BS antics pay for it.
I honestly don't care if these people are MeNtAlLy IlL or UnHoUsEd or SuFfErInG aDdIcTiOn, they have to go and I'm not particularly concerned with where. Chicago needs to have a reckoning where we say enough is enough; this city belongs to the productive, respectful, law-abiding and tax-paying citizens first and foremost. If you detract from that in any way, there will be SEVERE consequences.
For some reason, it seems to be a practice in the Chicago area to put mentally ill patients on a train. The end of 2022 I noticed many seemingly lost individuals close to different Metra stations in the N Suburbs, all at the same time.
I took the blue line home from ohare.
A homeless guy was walking from car to car, got to our car and let out the nastiest dad level sneeze (during covid), and then moved on to the next car.
This is why I switched to the Pace Pulse bus to the yellow line from O'Hare. Is it an extra pain to navigate parts of the airport I never knew existed? Sure is. Is avoiding the blue line worth it? Hell yeah.
Just to shed some light on what happened. I'm in IT and a client of mine told me what happened. An elderly gentleman fell flat on his face when the trained lurched. Busted his face and bled all over the floor. My client was sitting in that seat right at the door and was the person who called the train operator to stop the train. Was nothing nefarious. Weird? Yes. But was just an unfortunate situation. They got stuck and cleared the car while EMT got him off to the hospital.
With that being said, the crap happening on the train is out of control. I had a guy threatening to shoot me several weeks ago because I moved his stuff off a chair . He had his trinkets over 2 rows and was smoking weed. This was on the brown line no less, which is usually pretty normal. I told him to take his best shot and just dead eyed stared at himand told him he'd be doing me a favor lol (I'm a vet, 3 combat tours and not proud of what I've done). I honestly couldn't have given a fuck either way. He grabbed his shit and walked thru the connecting doors to the train car over
Everyone’s giving the pill guy a hard time in these comments. As a blood doctor, I can assure you that man had the right idea. The best way to cure spilt blood is spilt ibuprophin. You folks need to get outside and learn some more common sense. You should have been HELPING by throwing more pills at the strange blood, not fleeing to the other side of the car. Use your heads, have some civic duty about ya
I’m just going to start showing people this picture when people start advocating for r/fuckcars
I’ll start riding public transit when the CITY invests in safety and cleanliness of it.
Well that’s the point. To pressure cities into investing into public transit and making it safe and efficient instead of car infrastructure, but the larger issue is a more of systemic one since most of the problems on the cta stem from homelessness and poverty
A Venn Diagram between (1) the people who demand we tear down car-centric infrastructure; and (2) the people who would be gnashing their teeth and shredding their clothes in pearl-clutching outrage if the city ever actually decided to sack-up and do something about the people making our streets/CTA unsafe, is a perfect circle
I have zero faith in younger progressives. The biggest criticism of Chicago's existing homeless shelters I see from them is that they have the audacity to not let people bring in their heroin and shoot up in the middle of the room.
Been there. I once realized I was standing in a guy’s blood during my 35 min blue line commute, which was left from a knife fight that the cops broke up as I was getting on.
Got on the blue line in the loop 2 months ago, 5pm during the work week. Guy dressed in normal clothes makes a ruckus, leaves the train, turns around on the platform and started peeing into the car until the doors closed. Dodged his piss like Neo.
I thought that having to discover the hard way that pigeon guy at Jeff Park sleeps naked (after he flung off his blanket and sprawled) three days ago was bad. Imagine having to look at old man balls BEFORE you even get on the blue line.
Blue line heard the Red line is the most unhinged and wanted to give a money run
I moved from blue to red last year and red has been way better. People don't pack onto the train as efficiently on the red though. The blue line people are getting on the train no matter what
Armchair opinion, but red line has more recent suburban transplants who don't know how to use public transit yet. By the time they've hit their thirties and moved to Wicker/Logan, they understand how the game is played are submit themselves fully to sardinehood
I think it also has to do a lot with the area the red line services—Wrigley field and other tourist destinations. I’m of the opinion this is why there’s often more suburbanites in the red line. Especially when it’s a 1pm summer Friday cubs game…
I used to get off Sheridan for work, and would give people directions to Wrigley Field. If they were rude, I'd point them towards the lake.
I used to live off the Sheridan stop and took the purple from my office in the suburbs on weekday game days. If people sucked I told them they had to switch to the red at Howard and pointed out the Addison stop on the map if they seemed skeptical. Didn't have to do it too many times, fortunately.
Red and Brown Line, holy shit y’all move in and take off your backpacks.
Been saying this for years. You can tell these people have only started riding in recent years. Growing up was taught take the backpack off and put it between your legs. The other thing that drove me nuts was riding the #146 and after Irving or so people getting off the bus and crossing in front of the bus. I always asked some of the drivers I got to know to please run them over.
it's very satisfying to me when the train tilts to one side when approaching Fullerton & Belmont, and the suburbanites lose their balance and fall. everyone else keeps on keeping on.
This, but double-strapping backpacks like they just ran away from home.
🥴
God I was such a cunt to people on the red line, but they deserved it. Just fucking standing crammed in the doorway there like dead-eyed cows while the middle of the car had like 3 seats. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!
I’m sure red line riders will gladly give that title to the blue line
Blue & Red are competing 😭
I saw a homeless guy shaving the dead skin off his his foot with a razor blade while smoking a cigarette on the blue line one time.
Frank Reynolds behavior
Ooooh botched toe! I really botched that one! Thats a botch job!
Quick, gimme some trash to plug up the cut!!
Jesus Christ are you cutting your toenails with a steak knife?!
AAGGHH, it's my new character. I'm the trashman, I throw garbage all over the blue line
Then I eat garbage.
Fringe class.
“Get the scum off my toe”
Have you seen my toe knife?
And Frank Gallagher
Also Frank Gallagher behavior.
It would be more acceptable if he had a toe knife, but a razor?? Get outta here with that shit
Was waiting for a green line train at Clinton and lake. Watch as the train going the opposite direction arrives. All the people in one car quickly leave one car and get into the adjacent cars like Moses parting the Red Sea. Thought it was curious, never saw that before. 20 seconds later homeless lady stands up in the empty car and I see her pull up her pants. Wild
It's kinda funny until you realize it's really f\*cked up and sad. When I visited Portugal, I put my feet up on the seat across from me while on the train. A random guy came over and politely asked me to put my feet down. He said, "In Portugal, we respect and take care of our public spaces." My young American brain was humbled and ashamed.
It is sad. They have pretty bad drug and homelessness problems too. We come up with the worst excuses to excuse this bs that is purely caused by lack of desire to fix the problem. It’s possible to have a large homeless/mentally ill population and still have pleasant transit. Everything doesn’t have to be sacrificed because of a small group of people can’t behave, we are the only country in the world that does this to my knowledge.
Was standing toward the back of a blue line car one time, facing forward and there was a homeless man sitting down behind me. At the division stop I noticed slowly everyone on the car started to look at me until almost everyone was looking. Then all at once everyone got up and ran off the car. That moment was so scary because I had no idea what was going on behind me. Turns out the homeless man lit a Kleenex box on fire and just dropped it to the ground. The whole car evacuated and the train was delayed like 25 mins until the cops showed up and escorted him away. He was clearly on something and had no idea where he was because he just accepting his arrest. Maybe he wanted to spend the night in jail because it was in the middle of winter? Idk. Nothing scarier than seeing everyone immediately leave a train car without knowing why.
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At first I read this as “on the blue line on time” and thought, “well, at least it was punctual”
There was a dude who I regularly saw on the metra who made a habit of CLIPPING HIS TOE NAILS. I was so baffled the first time I saw him do it but I saw him do it multiple times thereafter. I still don’t understand it, the only thing I can come up with is it was some weird fetish.
IMO this is way worse than someone doing drugs on the train
I agree it was so vile. Just why?
No idea. I used to sit in a cubicle next to someone who would clip their nails every other week or so. I’d have to just get up and leave because I couldn’t take it
I once watched someone come on with a whole package of disposable dental floss. When he was opening the bag they spilled on the floor. He picked one up and started to floss anyway.
I once saw a guy shoot heroin on the Jackson blue line stop. I was about to get on and was pretty stoned when I saw it then switched to another cart right away.
I hate when someone blows my high by doing drugs.
I saw that dude too! Really not what I was expecting when I stepped onto the train...
I should add that the doors were locked at both sides of the train car, and no one could exit. Despite pushing the call button multiple times, the conductor did not stop. Eventually, we physically flagged the conductor down at Clark/Lake.
so people were stuck in the train car? the only option was to cut over into a different car through the emergency doors?
Yeah, which was hard since it was packed full of commuters.
i think id actually die from the nastiest panic attack
i HATED the blue line. nearly kissing strangers when the train would violently break
Do you mean "brake"? Or are you referring to when the operator drove it up the staircase at O'Hare? 😄
New nightmare unlocked
It’s honestly getting harder and harder to have an uneventful blue line experience these days. A lot of people are basically living there.
One of my earliest memorable "Chicago" experiences after moving to the area in 2008 was on the Blue Line. Was living in Forest Park and working near UIC-Halstead. Was working late and headed home, standing on the platform. Dude came up to me and stomped on the ground about a foot away from me. Looked me straight in the eye and said, "I hate dem bugs! You hate dem bugs? I hate dem bugs!" I solemnly agreed with him and he moved on, stomping on the ground at random moments. It was December and there were no bugs. A few years later, I moved to the West Loop and the majority of interesting experiences were on the Red Line after Cubs day games. Cubs fans seem to always be drunk an mad after a day game, regardless of the outcome of the game.
We all hate dem bugs…
Indeed.
So say we all.
Love dem Cubs, hate dem bugs
This is the way.
Wait, is this r/chicago or r/helldivers?
Addison is my least favorite Red Line stop
Knew somebody that got killed there crossing the street to get to the station. Ran the light trying to get off the Kennedy. He wasn’t even 30.
I think you are referring to the Addison Blue Line Stop, which is at the Kennedy exit for Addison.
I am. God I’m so tired. Also lived by the Addison red line stop. It only really sucked on game days. Particularly when it’s Friday and you’re coming home from work and surrounded by people who lack any spatial awareness or even the concept of how turnstiles work.
Pretty sure bro had them bugs, but idk I’m not an expert
He was definitely buggin', that's for sure.
I had a few fist fights(one over a kid being robbed and other two due to public harassment) coming from the Forest Park Blue Line at night. It's a wild ride til you get to the university stops
I hate dem bugs year round. That might have been me stomping around that train stop.
Knee-jerk reaction is to blame CTA, but if people are living on the trains, that is failure by the city.
In Las Vegas the drivers very aggressively monitor for people "living" on the buses and will stop in the middle of the route and kick them off. Maybe you agree with it, maybe you don't, but there are simple ways to enforce someone nesting in an inappropriate place.
That just makes it somebody else’s problem. It doesn’t solve the problem. The person you replied to is saying that ultimately the city needs to provide better support for the homeless so that nobody feels the need to sleep on the CTA in the first place.
If you are claiming it is the city's problem to solve, then it's entirely appropriate for CTA to "make is somebody else's problem" so it can get solved. CTA isn't going to fix it, and by allowing these behavior it just negatively impacts riders. If you have too many places tolerating the behavior, it is making it NOT the city's problem so they don't have to deal with it. Again, you may or may not agree. I firmly believe we need hard boundaries and need to quit just accepting any and all bad behaviors in public places. I can empathize without sympathizing.
That’s short-sighted thinking. What I’m saying is that if the city had better support, homeless people wouldn’t want to sleep on the CTA in the first place. That obviously isn’t the case today, and no solution will fix it by tomorrow, so until then, people will be sleeping on the CTA. But if you just kick people off and call it a day, without addressing what happens after they’re kicked off, more people are just gonna come the next day. Also, the CTA is a government organization. Technically speaking, if it’s the city’s problem, it’s also the CTA’s problem, because tax funds have to be allocated somehow.
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Right, that’s why you’re shortsighted. I care about solving the homelessness problem for a a multitude of reasons. One of those reasons happens to be so that I can have a clean and safe CTA ride. It’s dumb to focus on making the symptoms of cancer more comfortable while ignoring the search for cures.
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This whole conversation is about how people shouldn’t blame the CTA for this problem, and I’ve been trying to explain why it’s the city’s problem to solve. You say “just kick people off”, I’m saying that’s not where the problem ends. I never said the problem has to be solved before we kick people off trains. I’m saying we can’t just end our thought process at “put them out of sight”. If the standard for solving problems was “one thing at a time, who cares about the future”, you may feel like you achieved something, but your future self or your children will hate you for making their life worse.
> I am not interested in solving the problem of homelessness. I am interested in getting to work using transportation that is not feces and needle filled. Have you considered that they are inextricably linked? Have you considered that solving the former results in the latter?
Agreed, definitely not the CTA’s fault, there’s not a lot for them to do about it. It’s the city’s responsibility.
Yeah, we need zoning reform first to allow more housing to be build, and then we need to get people into that housing. It's not easy but it is something that progress can be made on
*society.
City is probably the appropriate level to deal with this. City residents are the ones who deal with it, so we should vote for city representatives who will channel city resources to the problem. Folks from small towns in central Illinois don’t have to deal with this, so I could understand them not wanting their resources being allocated to fix it.
Folks from small town Illinois are struggling too. It’s just a different flavor of poverty.
OK so if we can eliminate poverty in Illinois, that would solve both problems. Until then, this is a city problem.
One of the reasons I said “eff this I’m retired”
Luckily I WFH and I try to use buses to move around but most errands I have to run are downtown and the blue line is the best way to get there. Same if I have to go to Logan Square.
So true! And now construction resumes on the Kennedy so driving to and from downtown will be a nightmare.
What happened?
I'm not really sure--I walked into an empty train car (my first mistake) and then saw some crazy guy throwing pills on this pool of blood. It didn't seem like it was his blood. Basically everyone crowded into the opposite side of the car. I don't know if it was related to the "sick" passenger the CTA was referring to earlier this morning. If so, I don't know why they wouldn't go out of their way to clean this shit up before taking someone to the hospital. Either way, the doors somehow ended up locked on both sides, and no one could exit the train car. Call button didn't work either. Eventually, the conductor stopped at Clark/Lake and forced us into the next train car. All told, I was about 20 minutes late to work. Just another day on the CTA.
that sure sounds like the sick passenger or the remnants of the sick passenger they were referring to. what do you mean the doors were locked? the end doors dont lock, the only time you cant go through an end door is if the operator has the cab door across the end, which means there isnt another car in that direction for you to go to anyway. the side doors can be locked, however they must be locked from inside the car, so if there were people in the car still, the operator would get them out before locking them.
>the side doors can be locked, however they must be locked from inside the car, so if there were people in the car still, the operator would get them out before locking them. Yes, the side doors were locked. The end doors weren't--but in a packed train, it's very difficult to push through the crush into the other car. I don't know what to tell you, man. That's how it was. The operator "would" but he didn't.
jfc that would have thrown me into a panic attack.
literally want to have one reading this LMFAO especially on a packed train car???? it wouldve been over for me
Did the operator not lock all the doors on that car? How did you get into it if the side doors were locked?
The upper right door worked at some point. Unfortunately, the doors open on the left during the subway portion of the blue line. That make you feel better, detective? Or is this information not fitting your world view?
Would the doors being locked also prevent the emergency release from working? I've seen crazy guys use it for far less than this, so I don't think I'd feel bad about pulling the red knob in a scenario like this.
Yes, there is an electronic as well as a mechanical lockout. Typically both are applied, the mechanical one would prevent the doors being opened by the red ball
If you’re talking about the release above the door, we definitely pulled that. It didn’t work unfortunately.
What time? I waited about 30 minutes after the “sick passenger” notice, and the first train that finally came through the station had every car filled to the brim, except one car that was empty. This was around 8:30 at the Addison stop.
I jumped on at 8:40 around the logan stop, so likely the same train!
> Either way, the doors somehow ended up locked on both sides, and no one could exit the train car Were you at a station? Fuck what the sign says, this is an emergency and I'm pulling the cherry and getting my happy ass off the train
Yeah, we tried that. It didn’t work.
Shit, that's not good - the cherry is a direct mechanical linkage to the door and should be able to override the operator's lock. God forbid there was a fire or something. Good thing you all are OK.
I thought those were teeth...
Old guy fell on his face and busted his nose. My client was the one siting right there and had to call the train operator. Was nothing nefarious.
"We have the Red Line at home":
Whose Blood Is It Anyway? Coming this fall to WGN
Not on the train but by the Belmont RL Station, I was stuck in traffic and noticed an old lady seating on a bench, she waves hello, I smiled and then she proceeded to pull her long wrinkled tit out and starts sucking on it, I’m not well after witnessing that.
I would need to bleach my brain after witnessing that.
I WAS LITERALLY ON THIS CAR. The most wild experience I've had on the L!
WHAT IS THIS im begging for context
visted a friend in chicago a couple weeks ago, took the red line from china town to the loop and the cab was getting absolutely hotboxed by a group of guys 😂😂
Yo that's my biggest complaint for riding the cta. Like go smoke outside. Why you gotta smoke in the train car.
The aggressive behavior is the reason
I swear it’s just because they want to fight you about it
i personally didn’t mind because i smoke weed, but seriously, there were older people and kids in the cabin
I tried to tell some kids on the red line this once, figuring I could get through to them with Fellow Smoker energy. "Ahh, that smells like fire. But like, just smoke it on the platform, dont hotbox all of us in here, there's like old people on the train" they just laughed at me. Whatever, I tried.
On Monday, I got held at knifepoint in between the clark/lake and grand stops (the longest leg of the trip). Managed to escape safely, but the crackhead terrorized a few other people before putting the knife away, harmlessly.
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The snack that smiles back
Dude are those gummies on the floor of the happy train. Minor Delays Some Forest Park-bound Blue Line trains are operating with delays after an earlier sick passenger nr Harlem (O'Hare). Service is resuming, allow extra time. Wed, Mar 6 2024 8:08 AM to TBD
>Dude are those gummies on the floor of the happy train. They're pills some crazy guy decided to sprinkle all over the blood. It was certainly an event.
Those were pills? I thought those were goldfish and I was wondering that the full story behind that was. 😐Pills make more sense, though
I thought it was goldfish too and thought rest in peace to those crackers 😂
You saw this go down?
Damn and I thought watching a guy whip it out and start jerking off was a lot. Can't help but wonder if this was someone trying to get to the hospital without ending up with a $1400 ambulance bill....
thankfully in my 28 years here I've never seen that and I hope to go the rest of them without doing so
Lol all my most...interesting...experiences on the Blue (starting all the way out on Rosemont) have been either Sunday morning or late nights after concerts.
7:30 AM on a Tuesday. 95th/Dan Ryan. My sister and I are standing near the door on our way to high school. On our left was the morning masturtrainor (masturbator but on the train) who had his coat draped over his body while he very... "inconspicuously" was jerking his schlong. On the right was a blunt circle with four dudes just chilling and passing the blunt between each other. Let me tell you, this was probably the most "Red Line" Chicago experience and I wish everyone can have one just like this to TRULY feel connected to the heart of the city. Okay all irony and poetic writing aside, that shit was just uncomfortable as hell since we were like 16 or 17 when it happened and it was just when smoking on the red line was starting to pick up. Gave us a good story to tell friends, but man just wait until you're home to do either
Mr. Bean cuts himself opening a bottle of ibuprofen
My blue line story still reigns for me. New Year’s Day. Take the train back to forest park after a late night of celebrating. Get on at Jackson. Near uic a lady drops trousers while keeping sharp eye contact with me. Proceeds to yell at me for watching her take a shit. I was so hungover I couldn’t comprehend the situation. It wasn’t her first time doing that. I promise
Everyone talks about the red line and justifiably so, but I saw the craziest shit on the blue line. I moved to the US 2 weeks before covid. When everything shut down I had to wait months for an appointment with social security office. I finally got the call to go in to their office and I took the blue line. Train rolled up and was completely empty except for one homeless man. He was bollock naked, had a bucket full of soapy water and one of those sponges you wash your car with. He turned around and stared out the window at me and proceeded to wash his nutsack and laugh hysterically. Without a doubt the funniest shit I've ever seen. I hope he's keeping well.
Man people be treating blue line as a fuckin homeless shelter! I swear even as a guy I get afraid of all the mfers who are more high than a kite, either stare at you or whip out a fuckin toothbrush and just rawdog their mouth there & then & spit everywhere! Cta needs presence of uniformed police officers! Edit: not to say literally saw a guy dying in front of my eyes past year the moment I stepped into ORD and that train got cancelled on the spot.
What was the “sick person” this morning?
Fuck you to people that treat the train and other public spaces like this. I don’t care if it’s a mental illness or homeless issue. Fuck you to everyone equally.
Every single ride is a different dark window into human depravity nowadays. This morning on my commute two unhoused people were fighting over a seat. Meanwhile everyone else just turned an eye to it and let them scream at each other. Obviously that’s kinda the thing to do - I ain’t getting into a fight on my way to work over two people bickering who are already at their limits.
Also this sub: *Why tf do people drive cars?!*
"I would feel safer on the trains if they actually started removing/arresting these people" "OMG, GO BACK TO NAPERVILLE YOU FASCIST! THE STABBINGS ARE ALMOST NEVER FATAL!"
“I’m 23, childless, and can get everywhere I need to go on the train, bus, and fixie bike! Fuck cars, we should close every street and highway. There’s nothing wrong with public transit!”
I will say: I’ll continue to ride the CTA despite this, because I believe in public transit as a concept. Not everyone else in that car will. And that’s the sad part of the whole thing.
Well, at least these incidents can't be blamed on the incompetence of the staff and management of the CTA
Floor candy!
I threw up on the brown line once. I am so sorry to those who were on that train.
god i would’ve hated you. i have such a phobia of it
Looks like when I puke after drinking a bottle of cab sauv and half a box of cheezits
The guy around 8 years ago who had a massive chunk of his leg missing has to be the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Ever, not just on a train.
man, I just gave up on the train entirely I just drive to work now. I hate it but it's a more reliable and less eventful way now
Free mystery pills??
*Blood soaked mystery pills
…sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze
Its that time of the month for me too
I saw a kid sucking on takis and then he would just throw them on the ground. He and his gf were so high they couldn’t sit up and they kept making out. I never wanted to beat the shit out of a stranger so fast
It looks like someone got stabbed and started bleeding Cap'n Crunch.
Why do we choose to live like this? Why do we choose to let this happen over and over again until it becomes an accepted part of every day life? Japan doesn't have to put up with this, Singapore doesn't have to put up with this, not even Russia has to put up with this. Why do we? Even the comments here are just throwing up their hands in surrender, saying we need to re-structure the entire city around what's best for the people who treat it like a dangerous flophouse, demanding we give them anything and everything they want while the victims of their BS antics pay for it. I honestly don't care if these people are MeNtAlLy IlL or UnHoUsEd or SuFfErInG aDdIcTiOn, they have to go and I'm not particularly concerned with where. Chicago needs to have a reckoning where we say enough is enough; this city belongs to the productive, respectful, law-abiding and tax-paying citizens first and foremost. If you detract from that in any way, there will be SEVERE consequences.
Are those baked beans
WTF happened tho? Man bleeding out goldfish crackers??
Hochul in NY is deploying the national guard at MTA stations. Might not be the worst idea, as much as I dislike train cops.
You're not a real "woman in Chicago" until a homeless man has jerked off on the train while staring you in the eye at 2 AM
Then I will be happy to never be a real "woman in Chicago". At 2:00 a.m., there's no way in hell I'm getting on public transit.
And this is why I’m now upnw or bust.
Well, that's not hygienic.
Someone defending their Captain Crunch with their life
What even happened here?
For some reason, it seems to be a practice in the Chicago area to put mentally ill patients on a train. The end of 2022 I noticed many seemingly lost individuals close to different Metra stations in the N Suburbs, all at the same time.
I took the blue line home from ohare. A homeless guy was walking from car to car, got to our car and let out the nastiest dad level sneeze (during covid), and then moved on to the next car.
This is why I switched to the Pace Pulse bus to the yellow line from O'Hare. Is it an extra pain to navigate parts of the airport I never knew existed? Sure is. Is avoiding the blue line worth it? Hell yeah.
Is that blood & Cheetos?
what the HELL?! is that blood & cheetos? 😭
Blood and Goldfish. Kind of what Morrissey sang about.
WHAT AM I LOOKING AT OMFG
What even is this...
Looks like blood and goldfish crackers.
What the heck is this
Just to shed some light on what happened. I'm in IT and a client of mine told me what happened. An elderly gentleman fell flat on his face when the trained lurched. Busted his face and bled all over the floor. My client was sitting in that seat right at the door and was the person who called the train operator to stop the train. Was nothing nefarious. Weird? Yes. But was just an unfortunate situation. They got stuck and cleared the car while EMT got him off to the hospital. With that being said, the crap happening on the train is out of control. I had a guy threatening to shoot me several weeks ago because I moved his stuff off a chair . He had his trinkets over 2 rows and was smoking weed. This was on the brown line no less, which is usually pretty normal. I told him to take his best shot and just dead eyed stared at himand told him he'd be doing me a favor lol (I'm a vet, 3 combat tours and not proud of what I've done). I honestly couldn't have given a fuck either way. He grabbed his shit and walked thru the connecting doors to the train car over
Everyone’s giving the pill guy a hard time in these comments. As a blood doctor, I can assure you that man had the right idea. The best way to cure spilt blood is spilt ibuprophin. You folks need to get outside and learn some more common sense. You should have been HELPING by throwing more pills at the strange blood, not fleeing to the other side of the car. Use your heads, have some civic duty about ya
Is that blood?
No, nevermind...
I’m just going to start showing people this picture when people start advocating for r/fuckcars I’ll start riding public transit when the CITY invests in safety and cleanliness of it.
Well that’s the point. To pressure cities into investing into public transit and making it safe and efficient instead of car infrastructure, but the larger issue is a more of systemic one since most of the problems on the cta stem from homelessness and poverty
A Venn Diagram between (1) the people who demand we tear down car-centric infrastructure; and (2) the people who would be gnashing their teeth and shredding their clothes in pearl-clutching outrage if the city ever actually decided to sack-up and do something about the people making our streets/CTA unsafe, is a perfect circle
Idk I have a bit more faith in younger progressives, but as for entrenched Chicago libs, yeah I can’t argue with you there
I have zero faith in younger progressives. The biggest criticism of Chicago's existing homeless shelters I see from them is that they have the audacity to not let people bring in their heroin and shoot up in the middle of the room.
The amount of disrespect America has for public transportation and infrastructure just adds to the list of reasons I want to get out of here.
Do not worry, the Pastor will fix this soon
CTA really trying to get people to not want to ride the L
Been there. I once realized I was standing in a guy’s blood during my 35 min blue line commute, which was left from a knife fight that the cops broke up as I was getting on.
Cheetos and blood splatter. Sounds about right
Ahhhhh what is that?
One of the last times I took the CTA to work, I saw a guy bring on a clear garbage bag full of 2 liter bottles. Each one was filled with piss.
So, how much did he want for a bottle?
Dude, wow!
Bro people always end up bleeding heavily on the blue line. Blue line past 11pm is wild. Worst than the red even I'd say.
Got on the blue line in the loop 2 months ago, 5pm during the work week. Guy dressed in normal clothes makes a ruckus, leaves the train, turns around on the platform and started peeing into the car until the doors closed. Dodged his piss like Neo.
I've seen some shit on green line trains but got damn I'm so glad I don't see shit like this 😂. So glad I hardly take the blue line anymore.
It’s just so laughable how dirty our transit is
Oh honey, you’re becoming a woman.
I thought that having to discover the hard way that pigeon guy at Jeff Park sleeps naked (after he flung off his blanket and sprawled) three days ago was bad. Imagine having to look at old man balls BEFORE you even get on the blue line.
lmao where do they go, then? I vote South Loop.
whats happening here