Facing a long-feared fiscal cliff next year, Chicago-area transit operators have warned of a 40% service cut and sometimes suggest sullied optimism for improvement.
Yet Pace, the suburban bus agency, has a different message after its Pulse Dempster Line’s opening year: If we build it, they will come.
The limited-stop bus route started running daily in October 2023 between downtown Evanston and O’Hare International Airport. Now, with a year’s worth of data showing growing ridership, Pulse’s start has proved encouraging amid the testy fiscal situation, Pace spokeswoman Maggie Daly Skogsbakken said.
“In that corridor, we are close to pre-pandemic levels,” she said. “Whereas the rest of the system is at about 70%. If you include paratransit, probably a little closer to 75, 80%. So we’re super pleased with the results.”
Transit ridership plummeted across the U.S. at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ensuing shift in commuting patterns has left transit agencies with fewer passengers and new questions about how to adjust their services.
Funding, however, did not prove so daunting. Federal pandemic assistance funds have propped up agencies like Pace, supplanting farebox revenue to ensure they kept operating. But now the spigot has run dry.
State lawmakers will grapple with a projected $771 million deficit next year for the region’s four transit agencies: Pace, the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and the Regional Transportation Authority. Without an extra infusion from Springfield, the RTA has said it would have to cut service by 40%.
The Pulse Dempster service went live in the midst of this tumult. It follows the same route as the local Route 250, but it has fewer stops, traffic signal priority, more frequent service and more.
Nearly 2,500 people rode Route 250 on an average weekday in November 2019. That number more than halved a year later. But after Pulse’s debut, the Dempster corridor — including Route 250 and Pulse service — carried nearly 2,400 passengers on an average weekday in November 2024.
That return to pre-pandemic ridership stands as an outlier compared to the whole Pace system, CTA and Metra, which still lag.
“It goes beyond just making the case for Pulse,” Skogsbakken said. “It makes the case for faster, frequent service.”
Over the course of Pulse Dempster’s first year, Pace grappled with some setbacks too. Supply problems have delayed the completion of Pulse’s dedicated bus stop shelters. But the agency has otherwise remained optimistic over the route’s strong start.
The year-one results indeed seem promising, said P.S. Sriraj, who helms the University of Illinois Chicago’s Urban Transportation Center. State lawmakers, he added, might examine its opening success in mulling over boosting transit funding.
“The question is, ‘Is this enough of a sample size to convince legislators and decision makers, both in the industry and outside?’” Sriraj said.
That query could entail some nuanced complications, he added. For one, Pulse Dempster’s connection to O’Hare distinguishes it from other suburban routes, Sriraj said.
Pulse Dempster has proved popular with NU students flying to and from their hometowns. Early in January, Bienen freshman Tristan Wittmer stepped off the bus in downtown Evanston from O’Hare.
“My friends told me that it was the best way to get to the airport, cheapest and quickest,” Wittmer said. “It was a good experience.”
A Pulse ride costs $2 with a Ventra card and $2.25 with cash.
As the future of Chicago transit hangs in the balance — perhaps at the whim of Springfield — Pace has planned to keep growing its limited-stop Pulse network across the suburbs. The Dempster line, Pace’s second Pulse route, has nonetheless left a mark in its freshman year.
“‘Will that same level of success translate in other corridors?’ might be a question that legislators can ask,” Sriraj said. “But there is no denying that an improved service offering is always going to be looked upon favorably.”
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