Imagine you’re waiting at a Chicago Avenue stop in the Windy City’s Ukrainian Village, waiting for the 66 bus, when you see the guy who’s about to ruin everyone’s day slipping out of a gangway. Y’know, that person with ‘lookin’ for trouble’ scrawled on his forehead before he’s even reached the stop. The bus arrives, doors open, and there’s the guy, muscling his way past passengers exiting the front of the bus, his phone’s speaker blasting Nickelback. And you and the native Chicagoans around you resist the urge to yell, “Ey, stop bein’ a …” (complete the sentence with your preferred dose of rush-hour hostility). You’ve just witnessed three of the five big mistakes you want to avoid on Chicago’s CTA public transit buses.
The case for etiquette on public transit may seem a simple, moral one. Being kind, thoughtful, and courteous should be everyone’s default code of conduct. But it can often present a double-edged sword. What seems like harmless good intentions, like avoiding an empty seat, for example, may be a polite etiquette rule that Chicago natives actually hate to see. Because more than good manners, etiquette makes public transit run smoothly.
The Chicago Transit Authority’s decade-old courtesy campaign did its best to tame locals’ rude behavior on the bus and L, in a stereotypical Midwestern fashion. Messages on posters included the passive-aggressive rejoinder, “No one is interested in your conversation — trust us.” But travelers may need a refresher. So consider this your quick cheatsheet on making sure a local doesn’t label you a clown, or worse. The list was developed by comparing the CTA’s own Courtesy Campaign materials with Chicago locals’ emotional — and sometimes colorful — online chatter, and seeing where the two overlapped to create a critical mass.
Follow the Windy City’s bus door policy
Most doors — whether they’re on houses, cars, or space shuttles — serve three purposes: letting people in; letting people out; and keeping some people from entering. Not so with CTA buses, which have two doors, each with one specific role. Messing them up is the single biggest way to reveal you’re a CTA bus rookie (or phlegmatic local). This may get a bit complicated, but … the front door is for entering. And the back door is for disembarking. Phew. (Yes, the CTA briefly flirted with rear-door boarding in 2020, but it didn’t stick.)…