Heading to Chicago to see Taylor Swift? Consider public transit
No one wants to be in the slow lane heading to a Swift concert, but with thousands of tickets sold for each Soldier Field show, driving and parking will be problematic.
Here are some public transit tips for lucky suburbanites with tickets to pop icon Taylor Swift's three-day Eras Tour starting Friday.
• Take Metra instead of crawling along the Eisenhower or Kennedy expressways. The commuter railroad is not planning to provide any extra trips but some trains will be longer, officials said.
• From Union Station or Ogilvie Transportation Center, fans can walk to the closest Chicago Transit Authority Red Line or Green Line stations and take a train to the Roosevelt station, which is a little over one mile from Soldier Field.
• The CTA's No. 130 Museum Campus bus also has stops at Ogilvie and Union Station and drops passengers off near Soldier Field.
• If you must drive, how about heading to a suburban CTA stop? The Chicago Transit Authority has numerous park-and-ride lots at CTA stations in or near the suburbs.
Park-and-rides include: Rosemont, Cumberland and Forest Park stations on the Blue Line; the Dempster-Skokie station on the Yellow Line; and the Howard station on the Red Line.
• For quick boarding, get the CTA and Metra's Ventra app, available from the App Store or Google Play, to buy and display tickets.
• The CTA offers a 1-Day unlimited ride pass for $5; to find out more about prices and schedules go to transitchicago.com.
• Metra has a $10 unlimited ride pass for weekdays and $7 passes on Saturdays or Sundays. For information, go to metra.com.