Adrenaline rushes through senior James Hubbard’s veins as he’s forced to make a split-second decision at the CTA train station. He can either stay still and be forced to encounter a 15-minute delay from the train or attempt to make a 60-second transfer to the other side of the tracks.
James looks at the three trackers in front of him and makes a decision. Sweat beads on his forehead as he sprints across the station, every passing second feeling like hours. James falls onto the train with an exasperated sharp breath and realizes he saved those 20 crucial minutes.
James and several other seniors attempted to get to every single CTA train station on every line as fast as possible while only using CTA trains and buses or by walking. They were attempting to set a world record, and while they managed to finish in around 9 hours and 40 minutes, they did not set the record.
To this group of seniors, the challenge represented more than a unique way to spend a summer day — rather, it created community through fortifying friendship in stressful situations and experiencing the diversity of Chicago, much of which they hadn’t seen before.
James explained the situation as similar to a teambuilding exercise where they were all stuck trying to solve a problem together. Once, they happened to ride a train where police were detaining drug dealers — and another one later on that became busy due to a Cubs game. James said, “that’s how we lost our chance at a world record,” because of “drug dealers and Cubs fans.”
He also described another particular incident in which they were stalled by a late bus.
“We arrived at 63rd and Halsted on the Green Line, and we were going to catch the 63 bus to go to 63rd Red Line, but the 63 bus wasn’t going to come for 17 minutes even though it’s supposed to come every eight minutes,” James explained. “We decided to just run, and we had to run like a mile down 63rd Street. Just moments like those — it’s just so much fun solving them together.”
Senior Ruben Hayrapetyan also took part in this challenge and described the experience as a normal train ride except 30 times longer throughout all seven lines.
“You’re riding with friends, so you have fun conversations, and then you have high adrenaline moments — like when a van pulls up on you in the middle of 79th Street,” Ruben said. “Then, you have very low adrenaline moments when you realize you’re 30 minutes behind schedule. That’s kind of the gist of the experience.”
Ruben, a near North Side resident, didn’t only learn more about his friends or interesting facts on trains — he also learned more about what Chicago actually looks like. For example, he got to explore the South Side, which he hadn’t had much experience with before.
“You’re viewing all sorts of communities in Chicago, there’s so many. I learned a lot more about different parts of Chicago,” he said.
James’ main takeaway from the challenge was that it allowed him to gain a new perspective that the boundaries of U-High don’t usually allow for, which in turn opened his mind to the diversity of people and places in the city.
“At Lab, a lot of people here — I think it is the majority — have a very limited perspective on the city they live in,” James explained. “It’s limited to the ‘Lab Bubble.’ I feel like typically Lab kids don’t live in Englewood, and Lab kids don’t live all the way up in Skokie and all the way out west in Lawndale or Forest Park. I’m sure there are a couple, but I feel like a lot of people don’t have a perspective on the city. It’s a big city, there’s a lot of people here, there’s a lot of stuff to see, and just getting to see all the city as a contrast to what we’re used to is super interesting.”