The example I had in mind was blue line northbound from Clark & Lake. Which is admittedly the worst scenario that I could think of, and I should have said that

The example I had in mind was blue line northbound from Clark & Lake. Which is admittedly the worst scenario that I could think of, and I should have said that. It gets better quickly from there. I used to get on 2 stops further south, and, yeah, at 5 I usually had no problems and a decent chance of getting a seat, too.