Last week, Mandy Burrell Booth from the Metropolitan Planning Council wrote a great blog post about the Train Stop Guide (Streetsblog liked it, too!). Here’s her post, and a challenge: is your favorite train stop one of the region’s incredible undiscovered public spaces? If so, enter it in the What Makes Your Place Great? contest by July 26 and be eligible to win some great prizes!

What's your favorite CTA, Metra or South Shore stop?
By Mandy Burrell Booth

Chicago's dedication to preserving the lakefront as a public park has created miles of great waterfront park space to hang out at. An unfortunate side effect though is that it limits opportunities for waterfront businesses, such as restaurants. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to have both. Maybe this is just my Chesapeake Bay roots speaking. Where I grew up, waterfront goes hand in hand with seafood restaurants -- picking crabs and drinking beer. For such a vibrant city on the Lake with so many great beaches, Chicago has disappointingly few lakefront restaurants. Those few spots are easy to access by bike or on foot via the lakefront path, but I can think of only one with convenient access by train. The Waterfront Cafe is also a great example of the Chicago Park District leasing a public space to a business to offer Chicagoans a unique experience on the lakefront. I personally wish they would do more of this.

Rate your favorite train stops on Carfree Chicago's new interactive Train Stop Guide! What's the best stop to get off at for shopping? Where do hop off for your favorite restaurants or to enjoy a day at the beach or park? What's the best stop to live near? Find CTA, Metra and South Shore Line stations that get you to your favorite places, and leave your ratings and comments behind to let others know what they can look forward to when they leave the station (or give it the smack-down if there's nothing to look forward to!)

Train Stop Guide: http://www.carfreechicago.com/trainstopguide

Carfree Chicago is looking for a few writers to explore some local destinations by train and foot and share their experiences with others. If you enjoy day trips and writing and you have a camera, email Lee Crandell at lee@carfreechicago.com to learn about the excursions that need to be covered this summer and how you can write for Carfree Chicago. There's no shortage of great places to explore in our region. Let's help other car-free Chicagoans figure out what those places are and how to enjoy them without a car.

When I mention that I don't have a car, invariably the first reaction by my well-meaning friends and family is a shocked, "You don't?!?" followed by, "Why not?!?" It's like I've casually mentioned that I removed my own legs. Believe it or not, humans didn't always get around by sitting in a metal box that runs on “dead dinosaur juice.” There are plenty of great reasons to consider going car-free - mainly that cars are the #1 cause of global warming, exceeding even the damage done by coal-burning power plants. Going car-free is definitely the greenest thing a consumer can do.

Knowing this sobering fact, when it came time to replace my car this past January, I decided to see if I ‘had it what it takes’ to go car-free. Not only did I save a ton of money and make my life a lot simpler, I gleaned some tips for anyone else who might be thinking about dumping their gas guzzler as well: