Buses should run more frequently within the entire city, including the loop and to the museum campus. obviously this is a much larger project than just improving transit to the mc but something has to be done about transportation throughout the city. the problem: getting around is slow. why? traffic. how do you alleviate traffic? get cars off the road. why do people drive? it's faster, more convenient, and more comfortable than a bus. running buses more frequently requires less waiting making them more convenient. to make them faster get them out of traffic. how about bus lanes. that would make the buses faster and driving slower, which encourages more people to take the bus. that's the point. encourage public transit. discourage driving. once more people take the bus and less people drive, there will be lass traffic, so people well get around faster. specifically for the mc, increase bus frequency to and from and give buses the right of way, using bus lanes or signage.

I live in the suburbs, adjacent the UP-West Metra rail line. My kids love coming to the museums, but we almost *never* use mass transit because the timing of trains during the day is horrible! It takes over an hour to get downtown, and the mid-day train schedule is so sporadic, you're either stuck downtown far longer than you want, or you have no time to enjoy the facilities. There are already plenty of buses to get from the rail stations to the Museum Campus. The problem for many suburbanites is that the rail service itself is prohibitive to museum use. Perhaps a solution would be to negotiate special trains on each line that would have "express" service downtown, and arrivals/departures would be timed to coincide with shuttle buses to museum campus. Make it as easy as possible. For example, each rail line could have a specific time in the morning, say 9:30, where certain stops would be accessible. So, take the UP-W for example. There could be a stop at Wheaton, Lombard, and Oak Park, for example. The train would be a short train, just 5 cars perhaps, and it would arrive around 10:15. The bus could be timed so it leaves Ogilvie (off of Clinton) and heads straight to the Museum Campus loop. It would be free if riders show their Metra daily MUSEUM CAMPUS pass. There would also be specific return times, perhaps once per hour, that would take you back to *the same place* at Ogilvie (to avoid confusion) and there could be better signage to help newbies find their return train. The return would also be an express to the same stations. I recognize that this plan is costly for Metra, but it would surely be LESS expensive than building an expensive Light Rail system that people from the suburbs don't use anyway because they already drove their car downtown!