So now that I have the folding bike, I’ve been thinking of ways that I can take the train to Chicago instead of commuting by car.\u00a0 One obvious option is to take Amtrak up.\u00a0 The only problem is that my office is actually in the west suburbs of Chicago, an area that doesn’t get Amtrak service.<\/p>\n
So then I have to look at options for transferring to the Metra (the local light rail service).\u00a0 I can switch trains in downtown Chicago, and the Metra will get me within 2.5 miles of my office.\u00a0 Easy biking distance.<\/p>\n
And then I looked at the cost…\u00a0\u00a0 In order to maintain parity with what I pay now in gas (which is a significant sum), I would have to ride the train up to Chicago on Monday night instead of Tuesday morning.\u00a0 And I would have to ride back on Friday morning instead of Thursday night.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the train that is most convenient for me (weekday mornings and nights) is the one coming from and going to New Orleans.\u00a0 Since this train has the full complement of dining cars, sleepers, etc…\u00a0 it costs more to ride.\u00a0 $35 vs. $13.\u00a0 Ouch!\u00a0 Add the cost of riding Metra and you’re well on your well on your way to double what I pay now in gas.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure I can afford to do this with any regularity.\u00a0 I suppose though, that it’s good to know that the option is available should disaster strike.\u00a0 For now… it’s back to the drawing board.\u00a0 I’m tired of driving so anything that alleviates that for me will be welcome.<\/p>\n
–sam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So now that I have the folding bike, I’ve been thinking of ways that I can take the train to Chicago instead of commuting by car.\u00a0 One obvious option is to take Amtrak up.\u00a0 The only problem is that my office is actually in the west suburbs of Chicago, an area that doesn’t get Amtrak…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commute-bike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1258,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lalato.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}