Web app HopStop (via LifeHacker) allows you to access public transport directions directly from your phone. It’s currently available for some of the major metropolitan areas in the US and based on my tests in Chicago it works pretty well.
My CTA card has been playing silly buggers for the last couple of weeks. My rather uninformed theory is that it has been locked in an unending radio-frequency conversation with my Oyster card about the correct pronunciation of the word ‘tomato’ and finally stopped talking altogether as matter of principle.
My other pet theory is that while I’ve been fumbling around at the card reader with an increasingly agitated line of commuters building behind me, it has been randomly deducting credit from other people’s accounts. It’s the little moments of Schadenfreude that keep me going.
