This script optimizes the settings of the (northern Illinois) Regional Transportation Authority's online Trip Planner to take into account the heavy construction work that will damage commutes to and from the north side of Chicago until December 2009.

It is composed of three changes to the native default settings for the page.

The first line alters the default maximum amount of walking to 1 mile. Alter this value to 0, 1, or 2 if you are only willing to walk 0.25, 0.50, or 0.75 miles, respectively.

The second line alters the default to "fewest transfers." The reason this is done is because the Trip Planner naively assumes that buses will always be on time, and thus plans for transfers using on-time schedules. Given that the system is quite cavalier with transfers when "quickest" is selected, and given that buses never run on time and thus transfers are rarely made successfully, "fewest transfers" (i.e. one bus when possible) most often winds up being the practical "quickest" option. If you would prefer the system's "quickest" or "least walking" options, change this value to 0 or 2, respectively.

The third line alters the default to "only buses," given that north side train transit until December 2009 will be heavily backed up thanks to the CTA's ill-advised "three-tracking" project. The script should be changed to '0' if you want to include trains in the mix, or '2' if you wish to exclude bus travel.