Holiday travelers, rejoice: Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Pace Bus started a new express Pulse Dempster Line from Evanston’s Davis Street CTA station to Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
The line, which opened for full operation on Monday, will offer a faster alternative to the existing Route 250 along Dempster Street to O’Hare, which can often take as long as an hour and a half, though the online schedule estimates a 65- to 67-minute ride.
The Pulse route will depart the Davis station every 15 to 20 minutes from 4:30 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. Monday through Friday, with a slightly reduced schedule on weekends. According to the service schedule posted online, the new line will get airport travelers from Evanston to O’Hare’s Multi-Modal Facility in approximately 50 minutes.
“Pace is proud of our region’s investment in transit infrastructure in the northwest suburbs. It has made it possible for Pace to introduce this efficient and reliable service,” Pace Executive Director Melinda Metzger said in a news release earlier this week. “This is yet another example of how our region’s service boards collaborate and complement each other. Pulse truly creates a network of access across our region.”
The buses are equipped with technology to help them hit more green lights. “Each Pulse bus that operates along the line comes equipped with advanced transit signal priority that extends green lights and minimizes red lights to help Pace riders conquer congestion,” the news release notes.
With the arrival of the Pulse route, the 250 bus will depart once every 30 or 60 minutes, depending on the time of day. The Pulse line has 17 stops, compared with 84 on the 250, according to Maggie Daly Skogsbakken, the chief communications officer for Pace.
As part of the project, which was funded through a $10 million grant from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Pace built, or is building, new heated shelters with raised bus platforms specifically for stops on the Pulse line. Some stations are not complete, and temporary stops are marked with the purple Pulse logo and located near stations under construction.
“Launch went well with no major issues reported. We’ve had transit ambassadors in the field to assist passengers with the change and they have reported that the feedback they’ve received has been largely positive,” Skogsbakken said in an email to the RoundTable on Wednesday. “I don’t have final ridership numbers yet, but corridor ridership (Route 250 + Pulse Dempster) is estimated to be up about 11-12% from the same time last year (even with the inclement weather which usually has a negative impact on ridership).”
The bus fleet for the new Pulse line largely consists of “newer” vehicles, she said, with a special all-purple color and equipped with in-bus Wi-Fi. All new stations built for this route will also be ADA accessible.
What a great option! Now how can we lobby CTA to get 201/206 buses running on Sundays so everyone can get to the Pulse without a car? This would also help families get around on Sundays…to local businesses. To the library. To AYSO soccer. Etc etc etc.
We took Pulse from O’Hare recently on a Sunday morn. It left the transit center at 6am sharp and dropped us at Dempster and Dodge at 6:40. We walked 5 blocks home pulling our suitcases– easy on a fall morn, might be a bit more challenging with snow and ice!
This is a fantastic upgrade, which nearly triples the old #250 frequency, so lesser waiting times, in addition to the faster service en route.
Will the Pulse bus bring passengers from O’Hare back to Evanston as well?
It is a bus route. It goes both ways, so yes. Bus leaves from the intermodal facility where car rentals and parking shuttle arrives. Very practical.
Thank you to Pace Bus for this affordable option to get from Evanston to O’Hare, with a route that starts downtown and includes a stop at Dodge and Dempster. The $2.00 fare (using Ventra app or bank card) beats the cost of a taxi or rideshare for the same route.
https://www.pacebus.com/fares