McCormick Place Busway

Difficult to find and even more difficult to enter (don’t bother unless you have a good reason). The entrance is somewhere off lower Randolph underneath Millennium Park and there is a gate and security booth off the entrance. The road runs south along the Metra and South Shore tracks past the Art Institute and underneath the McCormick Center. The Art Institute has a pedestrian bridge and gallery that goes right over the road that connects the old Michigan Ave. building with the 2 newer buildings. The Art Institute loading dock for the modern wing is also located along the busway road.
I’ve only been on the road as far south as the Art Institute loading dock, but it runs pretty far down south. It looks like there is an exit onto 18^th Dr. that will get you onto LSD. It could be a fantastic shortcut to bypass LSD/​Loop traffic, but only if you are able to get onto it.

SECRET ROAD
I remember one day standing on a bridge near Grant Park and as I looked over the bridge I saw all of these buses riding along the Metra train tracks. At first, I thought it was werid and maybe I should call John McClaine from the Die Hard Movies to investigate. But as I stood there I realized that all of these buses were taking a secret road directly to the convention center.
So I decided to do some research and i learned that this road opened in January of 2002. What? Where I have been? How did I not know about this road? I also learned that this two lane mini highway cost almost 43 million dollars to build. Wow!!! This road is used only for private buses to shuttle people attending Chicago conventions from various downtown hotels directly to the convention center, bypassing traffic and stop lights.
I must say that this is a great idea because if you have ever attended a convention in other cites the hotel shuttle buses are always stuck in street traffic with other cars and taxis. This busway is so fast by not having to deal with a Chicago morning or afternoon commute.
Recently I attended a convention and had the pleasure of using the bus way four straight days from my hotel to the convention center and then back to my hotel. This was so nice. For example, it would take 22 minutes to get from the Westin on Michigan Ave to the Convention Center including one stop at the W Lakeshore Drive. That was really fast.
One of the things I noticed, as I was riding on the Busway, was all of the traffic sitting on Lake Shore Drive and we just flew by all of it. The Busway starts at Lower Randolph and Columbus and you feel like you are in some kind of movie as the bus approaches a narrow tunnel maned by only one lonely security guard. The road is very narrow and it is amazing that two huge buses can pass each other on the road. The busway goes along the Metra tracks with no stop lights at all. The bus finally emerges under the Convention Center and drops off its riders right next to the South Hall. This is great!
I can not believe it has taken me 13 years to ride on this busway. And to think that I have driven to the convention center and fought all of this traffic every year. Never again will I ever do that in my life plus I did not have to incur the cost of paying for parking either. Finally a great idea from the people that run the Pier Expansion Group. This should be one of there selling points when they are going after conventions because I have never seen such a great way to move attendees.
I am also glad to be sharing this secret road with my fellow Unilocalers. I am sure that many of my Unilocaler friends have probably ridden on this busway, while attending a convention here. So feel free to jump in and add anything that I may have missed about this amazing road.