Driving in Chicago is horrendous, evidenced by the slew of posts in the past month. From Channel 8 News / wqad.com:

A new study has found that the Chicago-Indiana area only ranks eighth on a list of average time commuters spent snarled in traffic in 2002.
But that still translated to an average of 56 hours a year in a car.

56 HOURS! Do you realize what you could do with 56 extra hours a year? You could sleep in an extra half hour every weekend. You could watch Law & Order for almost 2 and a half days straight. You could make 336 batches of 10 minute rice.
To top that off, school is back in. If you are like me, remember to change your morning commute to stay away from the high schools. I drive past Lane Tech in the morning, and knew I was screwed the second I turned onto Western from Belmont. It took me 15 minutes to get from Belmont to Irving Park. Bah.