Wrigley Field Parking

[crivitzbadger]

Heading to Wrigley tomorrow for the game. Never had to park there so wondering what the best, easiest place(s) would be, thanks?

[JohnBriggs12]

The title of this thread is an oxymoron. Parking and Wrigley just don't go together.

 

Your best bet is to take the Edens X-way and take the Dempster St. East exit. About a half mile east of the Edens is the CTA yellow line (aka Skokie swift) terminal. There is a good deal of parking (though not free) available (follow the signs). You can hop on the train there, and it will take you to the Howard St. L station where you change trains and take a Red Line right to Wrigley. Just reverse it on the way home.

 

I guarantee you will run into numerous Brewer fans taking this option.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The best, easiest place to park would be somewhere in the far north burbs near a metra line that you can take to union station, then jump on a northbound redline train to Wrigley.

 

I lived in wrigleyville for a few years, and unless you plan on getting to the area at 8am, you'll have a hard time finding anywhere to park that isn't going to cost you $20. Throw in it being the 4th of July weekend, Taste of Chicago, and construction all over I-94/294, I'd want to do anything possible to avoid driving.

[Baldkin]

I highly suggest parking in Skokie, and taking the yellow line to the red line to Wrigley.

[naivin]

Truly most of the construction hassles are immediately north and south of the state line, so you are going to have a real tough time avoiding those in any way. If you do decide to drive all the way, get off at Peterson, go east and take that to Ravenswood and head south. Ravenswood ends for a bit when it becomes one-way and you have to pick it up again if you wanted to continue on. You mightg think I'm nuts when you are on Ravenswood, but it does a good job getting you in there. You'll have to walk a ways but I have never not been able to find a spot on the street.

[cubfan1126]

I grew up on the North side of the city and I think you're nuts for suggesting Ravenswood.

 

I think those suggestions of Yellow line are excellent. Just remember they stop running at 11:00 PM. I would not recommend extending your stay by going down to the Taste on Friday unless you like crowds of over a million. Friday night is the big Fireworks show and it is a mob scene.

 

Also getting from Union Station to the Red Line is a little bit of a hike (over a half mile) or cab ride.

[BCZF]

Doesnt the Metra run to Kenosha too?

 

And oh by the way the Big Bang at Summerfest is Friday night, and there are lane closures from HWY 50 to the state line.. A cluster you know what no matter how you slice it..

[tristarscoop]

I've been to Wrigley numerous times in the past few seasons and always take the Purple Line from the Northern suburbs. The biggest appeal here is that you don't have to take 94, you can take 41 down.

 

People always poo poo me when I say this and say trains don't run often enough, but I've never, ever had an issue - I've been during the week and on weekends.

 

I'm in Milwaukee and I love this option. The furthest north station is Linden. If you do chose to take 94, you get off the freeway, take the street you end up on directly east and end up at the station. It couldn't be easier. They have their own parking lot and I believe it costs $2 or $3.

[benji]

I am heading down to the game tomorrow as well and highly suggest the amtrak train! This way you can avoid the crazy parking. The only negative is that the last one back is at 8 pm.

[jeffy]

Last time I was there I was able to park on the street for free, maybe a 15-20 minute walk from the park. This was for a day game and in the area we parked, it required a permit after 5 pm, or something like that. Game was a bit longer than expected and started getting worried about that but we ended up getting back to the car about 15 minutes before the limit, IIRC. This was a few years ago an parking restrictions may have changed. (this will not work for those who consider 1/2 mile to be "quite a hike", though)

 

With some of the paid parking, they don't really care if they screw you after they get your money. As we were leaving we saw people standing around some $20 parking, where they had jammed the cars in bumper to bumper, people were parked in and would be unable to get out until 2 or 3 other people decided to come and get their cars.

 

Metra does run all the way to Kenosha, btw.

[thebruce44]

Metra does run to Kenosha, as seen on their website www.metrarail.com. The problem is that the Kenosha service is very poor.

 

I would second the people who have suggested the Yellow line from Skokie. Check the CTA website to make sure the train is running and when it stops running though so you don't miss it. There is plenty of parking and it is a very safe area. If you plan on getting back to your car when it is still light out, the Redline Howard stop makes a lot of sense too. Then you don't have to bother with a transfer or anything like that, but its not the best area at night (perfectly safe during the day, especially at the station).

[Brewbadger]

I've always parked in Wilmette at the Linden station, taken the purple line to Howard, transferred to the Red Line there at Howard, and taken it to Addison, and the reverse in back order. The L solves the parking dilemmas but beware, I've seen some very strange things on that train, even during the day. In the past few weeks (went to a Cubs/Twins, and Cubs/Indians game as well as two of the Brewers/Cubs games this weekend, girlfriend has season tickets in sec. 133, pretty sweet), we have seen two strung-out gentlemen fondling, and unfortunately to put it bluntly, going down on one another (seriously traumatizing), a mugging on the train, and have seen multiple instances of people trying to hustle people with sleight-of-hand gambling tricks on the train. I think I saw four or five people lose $100 bills to these guys yesterday alone. Just beware of the train, that's all I'm saying. We probably just have bad luck with picking train cars, but interesting to say the least.

[thebruce44]

Thats crazy. I have been riding the redline at least 5 times a week for the last 2 years and have never seen anything approaching that.

[bani1717]

Took the Skokie Swift and transferred onto the Red Line for the last 3 games plus on Thursday night just to go downtown. It worked great, except that Thursday night there was some small backup in the Red Line (only about 10 minutes or so).

[diesmitty]

A little late, but I didn't see anyone suggest this. You can park at DeVry College (at Addison and Western...about 1.5 miles from the park) and take a shuttle to the game for just $6. It is available for all Night and Weekend games only, but is a great option if you don't want to travel on trains and what not for a long period of time. To get there, just get off on the Addison exit on 94/90 and drive about 14 blocks to Western Ave. I live in the neighborhood so I don't drive to games, but friends coming in from out of town (including Mikwaukee) take this route and love it.

 

Here is a link with more information: http://mlb.mlb.com/chc/ballpark/directions.jsp

[jeffy]

Hey, thanks for posting that...great info for possible future use. I would never have thought of looking on the team's site for a deal like that and I certainly would not have figured on finding this option for parking under the "public transportation" category.

[SeriesFinale]

Thats crazy. I have been riding the redline at least 5 times a week for the last 2 years and have never seen anything approaching that.

Yeah, I rode the red and blue lines every day, a couple times a day, for 8 years and I never once saw anything near any of that, either, much less any of it happening to me. Is riding the L as safe as sitting in your SUV on 43 north to Mequon? No, probably not. But it's no Robocop movie, either.

[Brewbadger]

Yeah, I haven't seen anything like that in the past either until the past few weeks. Like I said, probably just a string of bad "L" luck. My girlfriend's father has been riding the L for 20+ years everyday and he said he hasn't experienced anything like we have either really. An occasional gambling situation, but besides that, not much. Just weird stuff. I hope my bad luck with the train ends soon.

[Bring Back the Stein]

When I lived in Lakeview, I took some friends from Milwaukee's south side (where I grew up) around town. It happened to be during Pride weekend. There were dudes holding hands, as gay men are wont to do, and a few backless chaps, but we didn't linger around that scene for too long, only as long as it took us to get to the Gingerman or the Wrigleyville Tap (RIP). Anyway, I didn't think anything of it until I heard back from other friends in Milwaukee, who acted as if I had inserted these guys into a Studio 54 coke orgy. They saw crime and promiscuity where I saw, well, Lakeview. And maybe they were right, since everything depends on perspective, I guess.