Chicago: a little help with the El, please
 

I am in an apartment (with a car) at approximately North and LaSalle and not familiar at all with the city (on vacation). My mother will be arriving at Ohare at approximately 3 pm on Wednesday. We are trying to figure out a way for her to ride the El most of the way in and then have me pick her up at a stop close to the apartment without transferring lines. As I look at all these maps (none of which overlay streets with the El lines....grrrr....) it looks like she should ride the blue line into town to the Damen stop. Does that sound like a good plan? About how long a ride is that from Ohare to Damen? I am not expecting a parking lot...I think I will just circle and such until she calls on the cell phone and we connect. Thank you for your help.

The trip from ORD should take approximately 45 minutes.

Damen would be the nearest stop and you could just head west on North Avenue to the Blue Line. But, how much luggage will your mother have and will she be able to negotiate stairs with her bags?

If she may have problems, what could work is for her to take the Blue Line to Western Ave. It's about a half mile before the Damen stop and has elevators and escalators. Just a block north of the station at Western/Milwaukee/Armitage, there's a McDonald's, so you could park and grab a cup of coffee or something until she calls you.

A second option would be for her to take the train to Clark/Lake. It would be just over a mile south of you down LaSalle. She'd exit the Blue Line in the state office building and you could pick her up along Lake Street (under the L track) or you could take the Number 156 (LaSalle) bus down to meet her.

Perfect, perfect, perfect response, CityLights. Thank you! I think the McDonalds option sounds great. She will just have a carry on, so that sounds like the best option. Again many thanks!

Citylghts,

This Western stop worked great...the MCDonalds parking lot was perfect, and others seemed to think so, too! Lots of pick-up/drop-off action there. Thank you for the suggestion; I would have never figured it out on my own!

Glad it worked for you.