Even dedicated transit user could take only so much

Broderick is the Daily Herald's presentation editor for news.

I tried.

It was easier in nice weather. Then it was a refreshing walk in the morning and a quick train ride, followed by a transfer to a Pace bus. I met nice people on the bus. After 9/11, I remember talking with individuals I never would have encountered in my normal social circle.

Even in the harshest weather, I did it. I bundled up against rain and snow, trudged through unshoveled sidewalks and waited with everyone else on the cold, exposed train platform.

I dealt with buses delayed by the same traffic that cars were stalled in, stamping my feet and turning my back to winds that lowered apparent temperatures to far below zero.

And I understood when, a few years ago, the buses stopped running because of a blizzard that hit at rush hour. It took me and everyone else in the Chicago area hours to get home. The next day, I was back on the corner, waiting for the bus.

I really tried.

When slow areas were instituted on the Blue Line El this year, I adjusted. I left earlier and earlier in the morning in the hopes of catching a train that would allow me to connect with the Pace bus.

I tried in spite of the time I walked out to my bus stop after work a few years ago to see a car lying on its roof. The driver had lost control, jumped the sidewalk around where I usually stand and taken out a street light and business sign before it stopped.

And I stood out there in spite of the street plan that put suburban sidewalks right up against a roadway with traffic moving at freeway speeds. Snow has no where to be plowed in winter except onto those sidewalks, leaving me standing in the street.

But a few weeks ago, I gave up.

I gave up after finding that, although I arrived 20 minutes before I normally would, there had been no trains at the station for a half-hour. This was after enduring weeks of trains moving far slower than they should because of track repairs that couldn't be made without funds. I didn't always make it to work on time.

I gave up after standing at the bus stop for almost an hour one evening, waiting for a bus that never showed up. This was a nice day in summer -- no blizzard to provide an excuse -- and it came after weeks of buses that kept showing up late. I couldn't stop thinking of the time with my family, with my children, that was being stolen from me because the bus couldn't keep the schedule.

I have to get to work on time. I have to get home at a decent hour.

When you take public transportation, you make a deal. It's unwritten, but it's a deal. You do all the things you have to do to get to the train or the bus on time. And if you are on time, the train and the bus are supposed to be there.

So now I am one more automobile on a congested road system. I cannot afford a new, more fuel efficient and less polluting car right now, but at least I have a car. Others who take public transportation endure far more than I. But I get to work on time. And when I leave work, my family and I know that I'll be walking through the door 45 minutes later.

We should have had light rail and commuter train alternatives in place by now. We should have stopped designing our communities to be unfriendly to non-automotive commuters, where few can easily walk to a bus or train stop.

Instead, we're contemplating reductions in transportation funding, delaying new suburb-to-suburb commuting alternatives and generally doing things that put more cars on the road -- and more pollution in the air.

Way to go.