Back home in Hawai‘i, I sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic every day and watch as the Rail, our new, very expensive, and poorly planned train, passes over the road completely void of passengers. Here in Evanston, I board the CTA with a thoughtless swipe of my Ventra card onto a bustling train car.
At Northwestern, taking advantage of public transportation has become a staple of my life. The thought that I may ever need a car in this city has never crossed my mind, while in Hawai’i it’s hard to imagine living without it.
Students from areas with similar public transit access share this sentiment. Michelle Iftekhar, a freshman from Los Angeles, California, never opts for the train in LA, noting its lack of ridership and accessibility compared to the CTA. Chicago’s public transit options allow her to be more mobile as a college student who doesn’t have a car on campus.
Michelle Ifthekar: It’s definitely faster, more reliable, higher riderships, so the city actually seems to care and focus on prioritizing their connections and making sure service is always available to people that need it.
On the flipside, Freshman Lois Xie’s experience with public transit growing up initially made her wary of taking the CTA. She is from Lawrence, Kansas, a town free of transportation options.
Lois Xie: I’m scared of, you know, either missing it or doing something like that because I have classes to go to, so I’m kind of hesitant to use it.
Since coming to Northwestern, Xie has slowly gotten the hang of public transportation. Now, she can’t imagine not having trains or university-run buses, such as the frostbite shuttles, as a resource to get around and connect with other students.
Xie: being in these kind of communities where there is public transportation, It just makes everything feel a little more closer together.
Access to the CTA, Metra, and various buses have broadened opportunities for thousands of Northwestern students. Transportation expert and McCormick Professor Marco Nie believes Evanston in particular is a fantastic town for students to get their footing in the world of public transportation. Getting around in Evanston allows students to be mobile, without being as overwhelming as, say, the center of Chicago.
Nie: Once they come here to Evanston, they discover that mobility actually means access, right. So once you have access to transit, you can have mobility so that, for some people that can be, I guess liberating, it’s exciting, but for others, it can be confusing, right?
Though the breadth of options have been enticing for some and daunting for others, a consensus is clear: Wildcats prefer to have a choice in their transportation, rather than rely solely on a car. But, not all cities are currently suited for public transit, according to Nie.
Nie: unless Americans accept that they can live in highly populated, dense, highly populated, dense urban areas, if you feel comfortable to live there. And they’re willing to live in those areas, it’s very hard to provide competitive transit systems.
Access to public transit may only be a reality for Northwestern students while they’re here at college. However, by taking the train to Chicago with friends, boarding the CTA Evanston bus, and enthusiastically opting for public transit, students are both enriching their own lives and helping to restore the CTA’s faltering ridership.
In 2020, the numbers of people boarding the CTA dropped dramatically due to the COVID pandemic. With a decrease in riders came a decrease in fare profits, The CTA is still recovering from . Officials have been trying to revive use of public transportation, with varying success. In December of 2025 the largest measure to revive the CTA to date was passed. Senate Bill 2111 allocates one and a half billion dollars to the Northwest Illinois Transit Authority each year to help with Chicago’s public transit planning and projects.
Northwestern students could be part of the solution, strengthening the CTA’s ridership base. Students with and without experience with public transportation harness the power of the CTA to give them access to the city.
Ifthekhar: it’s like really easy for like young people to get around and like get to specific locations like fast and like with a reliable method and like it’s also relatively cheap so I I find myself on the CTA really often it’s very convenient.
With production help from Tillie Freed,
I’m Ella Alexander, WNUR News.
