Gasoholics Anonymous

As I wrote earlier, I'm taking a trip to Chicago. I'm looking into how to manage myself without renting a car, and with minimal oil use. Of course I'm flying a plane to Chicago, but what I'm looking at is travel while there.

The Wikipedia has useful pages about the mass transit systems of Chicago.

Mass Transit in Chicago: An overview

Metra is a rail system in and around Chicago.

The Chicago Transit Authority is responsible for mass transit in the Chicagoland region.

Each of the pages has extensive links. One thing I see is their system seems highly focussed on moving people between the suburbs and the downtown area. The rail lines in particular are like spokes converging on the hub of downtown Chicago. This makes it difficult if what you want to do is travel from one suburb to another, because you're likely to require riding the train downtown and switching to a different train there.