The last time Chicago intercity bus service was making headlines was last fall, when the local Greyhound station, 630 W. Harrison St., was in danger of permanent closure. That would have made this the largest metropolis in the Northern Hemisphere without an intercity bus facility. That embarrassment was temporarily avoided when Greyhound owner FlixBus worked out a month-to-month lease deal with the station's landlord.
Today there was more news about Chicago and Illinois intercity bus travel, a crucial mode for students, seniors, low-income travelers, and other marginalized demographics. DePaul University released its annual intercity bus report, "Stepping Up Service: 2025 Outlook for the Intercity Bus Industry," by the Chaddick Institute's Professor Joe Schwieterman and Program Manager Zaria Bonds.
"Due to the extensiveness of competitive changes, we put more work into the study this year than in past years," Schwieterman explained to Streetsblog. "Chicago doesn't loom large in this year's study, except for the difficult and unresolved bus station situation. However, the Chicago to Green Bay service on Greyhound was recently dropped, and we have just two buses daily from Chicago to St. Louis. Oregon and Washington State point toward innovative intercity bus/Amtrak integration, which is sorely lacking here."
Schwieterman said that, overall, the most notable prediction in the report is that intercity bus ridership will increase by 4 percent this year. That's significantly higher than the 2.4–2.8 percent growth of domestic car and plane travel projected by the U.S. Travel Association. That's credited to service expansions in the Southwest and Sunbelt states, although less bus ridership growth is expected in northern states like Illinois.
The professor mentioned a few other aspects of the report that are relevant to Chicago and Illinois. "The highly disconcerting aspect of the potential loss of the Chicago Intercity Bus station is that no major transit centers downtown are a viable fallback option," he said. "Such centers have been the 'go-to' option in many other cities. We could end up with an arrangement akin to Philadelphia, where Greyhound and FlixBus depart from an expressway underpass."
That's just one of the sobering aspects of Windy City and Prairie State intercity bus service discussed in the report. Schwieterman noted that Chicago has lost direct bus or rail service from Chicago to the Illinois cities of Danville, Decatur, Dubuque, and Galena. "The only direct options to Peoria depart from O’Hare," he said. "Bus service is beneficial even when Amtrak service is available by offering different stops, including pickup and drop-off at college campuses. We lost direct Chicago to Green Bay service late last year due to a Greyhound cuts. These are gaping holes in our transportation network."
The professor pointed out that only two buses travel on a daily basis from Chicago to St. Louis, which could serve many communities that don't have convenient Amtrak service. "Bloomington lacks an early morning bus or train option that gets people [to Chicago] in time for events starting before 10 am."
He noted that Illinois has not developed a coordinated statewide intercity bus network like Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Virginia and other states. "Each has large state-supported networks. Most of these networks, such as Bustang in Colorado, Virginia Breeze, and Travel Washington’s systems, are smartly branded."
Schwieterman argued that the Land of Lincoln doesn't not do enough to encourage people to combine bus and train travel by integrating services on the Amtrak website. "For example, there are no southbound departures on the Chicago to Champaign corridor on Amtrak.com between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., when many people want to travel. Oregon’s Portland to Eugene route exemplifies how buses and trains can be marketed together."
The professor added that most other other large U.S. metropolitan areas have a viable strategy to support intercity bus service. "Those that don’t, like Philadelphia, are working to develop such a strategy. "Houston is another exception, but even it has workable longterm options. Michigan is planning a new combined bus and train station at the historic Michigan Central facility in Detroit."
A few other things Schwieterman noted from the report:
• "Due to construction, Peoria Charter was required to move from its longstanding curbside home near Chicago Union Station to an unattractive Interstate 290 underpass several blocks away. It has appealed to local officials for a better location."
• "Indian Trails could return to Chicago if it had a better location than the one at the underpass."
• "There is also a section in the report on the growing use of the O’Hare Multimodal Center. However, bus lines pay a significant fee to use it charged by the convention bureau."
The study suggests that, in addition to the local Greyhound station issue, there are many other ways in which we need to make Chicago and Illinois bus service more robust.
Read "Stepping Up Service: 2025 Outlook for the Intercity Bus Industry" here.
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