I'm not entirely sure this entire video is exactly what is says, but it is a fun watch of bus operations in Chicago during the DNC, including some convention shuttles. The community section of this content creator's youtube page also has some good pictures of the bus shuttles during the convention.
Though I rode transit every day during the DNC, I didn't get to experience things downtown much. Though, on the Sunday preceding, it was intetesting to me that the telecommunications in tunnels seemed to be shut down during my afternoon trip. They were available a little later that evening.
I did hear some interesting chatter about how conventioneers were impressed. Things like, "The Blue Line train was full, but CTA sent another special train." I took this to indicate the sort of special event staging which rail operations sometimes organizes when big crowds are expected for special events, creating some extra capacity. Indeed, I saw a train run express without passengers by my stop on the last night of the convention, clearly for such a purpose.
I also heard a Pace suburban bus driver speaking to someone about another driver who had been working convention shuttles.
And, I did see the Metra O'Hare Special pass through Rosemont one evening, also.
Some regular riders suggested, snarkily, how they wished for such reliable service beyond the DNC.
It is clear, from both media reports and a conversation with a friend who eyewitnessed, that the new Damen Green Line station became a target for protesters. And press coverage also showed how busy the station at Ashland was, near a park where most protests and marches organized and began or ended.
There were a couple of rush hour snags, not specifically convention related but which could have effected anyone staying north of the city, as both Metra and Amtrak got in accidents with trains hitting a vehicle or pedestrian around the end of the convention.
As a humorous aside, I asked someone I know (who I thought might have attended a protest or two) what she did that week. "I have to get on a plane this weekend, so I didn't want to risk arrest," she replied. "But, I was at ALL of the protests in '96!" And, sure enough, she rode by on her bike to check out the ones last week.
You can't beat political conventions in Chicago!
