NATO jams up Chicago traffic

NATO jams up Chicago traffic

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Can't Get There From Here (Flickr/Kizette)
You and I…we work.  We pay our taxes. We’re decent human beings.  But in the end, we’re just not that important. Or, at least, not as important as the Gantse Machers (Yiddish for ‘Big Shots’) that are coming to our fair city this weekend. Their safety, and their ability to get from place to place as quickly as possible trumps my need to run errands or your need to live some kind of a normal life.  

I know people who wouldn’t march on NATO to protest global policy in a million years. Yet they’re ready to march on sombody or something to voice their displeasure about the traffic hassles they’re about to endure.  

Well, guess what? If you think ‘you can’t fight City Hall’, then you certainly can’t fight the most powerful military alliance in the history of the world. Best way to deal with it is to be as informed as possible about the where’s, when’s, and what-to-do’s when faced with roadblocks and reroutes.  

The City of Chicago, and the CTA, known for years as paragons of efficiency and fountains of information, actually has some pretty comprehensive pages on their websites. Start with the Chicago NATO traffic page.  It not only has additional links, it has maps. That are readable. There’s a page with all CTA bus reroutes.

Metra has a full page that includes all kinds of info, from service information, to alerts about the fact that you may be searched boarding a train, to what you can and can’t bring on the trains during the summit.

There will be “rolling closures” on the Kennedy Expressway as VIP’s are being whisked from O’Hare to their downtown hotels. WBEZ/Navteq traffic reporter Jill Egan will explain exactly what this means, and so much more, Thursday in the 3 p.m. hour of Afternoon Shift