LINCOLN SQUARE — Brown Line riders want to be left alone.
When we asked our readers "How do you ride CTA trains?," nearly 60 percent of Brown Line riders responded with a preference for one of the rail car's single seats.
Well, duh.
Nab one of these primo spots, get lost in a book/phone/music, and you can almost — almost — pretend you're being chauffeured.
Seriously, given the choice between sitting next to a man-spreader and no one, who wouldn't opt for no one?
Given the choice between sitting next to the woman clipping her fingernails and no one, do we even have to ask?
Given the choice between A) sitting next to an over-served Cubs fan who's getting the puke sweats and B) not sitting next to an over-served Cubs fan with the puke sweats, the real question is: What's wrong with the 40 percent of people who opted for Door No. 1?
After 15 years of riding the Brown Line almost exclusively, I'm not even going to pretend to be objective about this: the single seat is the holy grail of the CTA. It's public transportation the way it would be, nay, should be, if riders, not bean counters, were in charge of the design.
People have all sorts of reasons for riding CTA. A strong desire to have a complete stranger fall asleep on your shoulder isn't one of them.
Personally, I hate traffic and parking and I'm such a horrible driver that the government should pay me for staying off the roads. Or at least send an occasional thank-you note.
Like a lot of my fellow riders, I also happen to care about the environment and transit is part of a conscious effort to minimize my carbon footprint. Here's the deal we altruistic riders make with self-absorbed motorists: We get to feel superior about saving the planet and reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil, you get to commute in comfort.
Wait, that's not fair.
Think about it: Who do you normally ride with in a car? And by car, we don't mean Uber or Lyft or god forbid a cab. We mean a car, your car.
Your fellow passengers, if you're carpooling at all, are probably limited to family and friends, your spouse and kids. And yeah, they might be annoying, but the key take away is that they're people you actually know.
The forced intimacy of mass transit is at best awkward, at worst creepy and downright threatening.
The single seat levels this playing field a teeny tiny bit for transit riders, providing at least the illusion of personal space in what can be an uncomfortable public sphere. While that might seem like a contradictory instinct, it's not unique to CTA.
Nobody enters a movie theater, scans for the most crowded row, and voluntarily wedges between Jumbo Popcorn Eater and Giant Soda Slurper.
Ever met someone stuck with Boarding Group D on Southwest Airlines? They literally smell of fear, such is the loathing of the middle seat.
So strong is the lure of the Brown Line's single seat and its promise of the smallest modicum of privacy, it trumps the most common of CTA behaviors — crowding the doors.
More than on any other rail line, Brown Line riders tend to stand toward the center of the car.
That's because we're stalking the single seats.
C'mon, I know I'm not the only one who enters a car, scans for a single seat and, finding none available, takes up a post in the middle of the car.
From this strategic spot, I monitor the occupants of the coveted onesies for signals that they're about to vacate. At the slightest movement — the pulling out of keys, closing of laptops, zipping of coats — I prepare to pounce.
I'll spend an entire commute in huntress mode if I have to. The single seat is there, and it could be mine if only its holder would GET OFF AT THE NEXT STOP.
Once I have secured my prey, I can feel myself immediately relax.
Ahh, the beauty of mass transit, without the masses.
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