As a resident of the Chicago suburbs who used to live in Chicago, I must caution that this is little more than propaganda from one of the most eco-unfriendly cities that I have ever been to. The public transport system does not even cover large parts of this huge city and the suburbs and the trains and connecting buses are irregular at best.

Downtown Chicago is so badly polluted as are both the major expressways leading into it that if you happen to live close to these roads you could expect your hearing to be affected and your asthma to become really bad with every hour spent there.

Sorry, but this is propaganda at its worst. My feeling is that this is designed to try and present a rosy picture as Chicago bids to host Olympics in the future. There are many residents of the Windy City who believe that this false propaganda has to be opposed in the best interests of those who live and work here.

As a resident of CHICAGO, the public transportation system does in fact cover the city. While it is true routes have been taken away from how it was 5 or 10 years ago, it is not necessarily the job of Chicago to ensure suburban transportation, which is why Pace runs those routes but the CTA trains go to skokie, evanston, wilmette. You need the Metra and South Shore lines if you want to get from Wisconsin or Indiana. I would certainly challenge you to find a better transportation system in the country. Having lived in other large or fairly large metropolitan areas I believe that the only better systems are overseas.

I have no evidence to support your pollution claim, so I can neither agree nor disagree, but again, how would living near an expressway in Chicago differ from that of living near I-25 in Denver? I don't think Denver uses any different noise abatement material in their walls, but maybe they do.

You can't have seen much of the country if you haven't seen a better system of transportation - there is a city called New York which beats what Chicago has by spades as far as public transport is concerned. The rest of the Northeast is also vastly better.

The fact is that CTA schedules are completely irregular and that is why no one who has a job and has to get to work in time can afford to rely on them.

As far as pollution is concerned, Forbes magazine carried a survey of the ten most polluted cities in the USA. Do a Google search for it or check at your local library. It would be educational to say the least.

Your own post admits that routes have been closed down. After this, if you must thump your chest about the greatness of the system of transportation, then it is clear that your post is just bluster. No amount of chest thumping for Chicago is going to alter the facts that this is a dirty, noisy and polluted city and that a few organic food restaurants are not going to suddenly and miraculously clean it up.