Turtles all the way down

My commute has gotten interesting. Last week it was a 30 mile drive each way to and from the office. This week it’s a bit of a mess.

Commuting from the suburbs into Chicago means you you either have to drive or take the Metra trains. If you take the Metra trains, you have to get to the train station. Those of us not living within walking distance of one might be able to take the Pace bus. I say “might” because if you don’t live near a Pace route, you’re SOL.

So you can drive to the station, right? Wrong. Parking is notorious in most of the Western suburban stations. There is a six to nine year wait for permanent parking passes. This leaves two types of daily parking options. There are the spots that become available at 6:00 am and are taken by 6:01 am. Or, you can wait for the spots that become available at 9:00 am but force you to take the train that doesn’t get downtown until 10:45.

My classes end at 7:25 pm twice a week and at 8:25 pm twice a week. This means that I have to catch the 7:40 and 8:40 trains, respectively, which means that I get to my home station 8:40 and 9:40. The last Pace bus runs at 8:40. I’m not sure what I’m going to do on those two days a week that I don’t get home until 9:40. I have the equally unpleasant and expensive options of taking a cab home or driving to Chicago and parking there. The third possibility is to use the 9am parking on these days and hope that getting to the office at 10:45 isn’t a showstopper. After all, I can get a lot done on that long train ride, at least in theory.

Or, someone can get smart and build a parking garage by the train station.

The economics in play are revealing. Permanent parking passes cost about $240 per year. Daily parking passes cost about twice as much annually. Taking the bus costs a little more than that. So the option that is most environmentally conscious and produces the least traffic costs the most. In the mean time there is a nine year wait for cheap parking. The city should raise the price of parking and lower the price of the bus to reduce the waiting list while using the additional funding to provide more frequent bus schedules.

Or to build a parking garage.