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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowNew York City-based transportation startup OurBus, which began offering a daily route from Indianapolis to Chicago in mid-2019, has stopped offering the service, the company confirmed Wednesday.
The service was launched after Indiana withdrew funding for Amtrak’s Hoosier State train service from Indianapolis and Chicago in July 2019. The route, which offered stops in Zionsville and Lafayette, was suspended temporarily in 2020 due to the pandemic but had been in service ever since.
In a written statement, OurBus said two “setbacks” led to the decision to quietly cancel the route as of June 24.
One setback involved redevelopment plans in Chicago that forced a bus stop to be moved several blocks away, to under a freeway overpass, removing connections to Amtrak routes. OurBus said ridership on the route fell 30% after the move.
OurBus said visitation by families and tourists from Indiana spending the weekend in Chicago was also down significantly, which the company attributed to media coverage of crime in Chicago.
OurBus isn’t a traditional transportation company and doesn’t own a fleet of buses. The company, which considers itself a tech company, handles routes and scheduling, ticket sales and customer service. It contracts with local providers who supply the buses and drivers.
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Pease bring back the IND to CHI Amtrack train!!
So that it can be underused, again?
The only reason Amtrak is under used is that the commerical freight company’s consistantly violate the law and force passenger trains to wait on them to pass. As a result the trains have a lot of difficulty being reliable and on time. The government gives millions to airports and strickly enforces rules and regulations for flying but does nothing to enforce existing laws regarding commerical freight vs passenger traffic. I love to ride the train..it is simply a more civilized way to travel. If the train was on time people would ride them much more frequently.
For rail to be successful — meaning operation at speeds up to 200 mph as in Europe, China, and Japan — right-of-way must be completely separated from cross traffic as is the case with interstates. Track must be maintained and tight(er) curves eliminated.
But higher speeds of up to 110 or even 125 are achievable with less costly improvements as have been implemented in Illinois and Michigan. Or, at least improve tracks and signals to allow 79 mph operation as was common before 1939. Yes, check historical timetables and note that travel between Chicago and Indianapolis and Cincinnati was faster 80 years ago.
One does not expect state support in Indiana, much unlike Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina — other red places that do support rail.
The world has moved on. The US has regressed.
Flixbus still serves the route as does Greyhound.
I think OurBus has the worst marketing out there. I took an OurBus last year, contracted out to GoldBus, and it picked up 3 people in Indy and 12 or so more in Lafayette.
In contrast the last time I took the Cardinal to Chicago it was PACKED with dozens getting on at the Amtrak station.
Illinois has just completed a Chicago to St. Louis high speed train line. North Carolina is in the early stages of putting together a statewide service. It’s too bad that our legislators can only dedicate their funding and imagination to upgrading and expanding the old South Shore Line…designed to facilitate better service to and from Chicago. The entire population of the ‘Region’ isn’t half of just Marion and Hamilton counties. With all of the mega commercial, industrial and residential construction going on in central Indiana….a person today, in our ‘highly technical’ world still can’t even ride a bus from Noblesville to Indianapolis. One could, in 1956. So much for ‘progress’.
Indianapolis’s connection to other major cities remains tenuous at best. We still primarily rely on car and truck service to Louisville, Chicago, Columbus Ohio, St. Louis and the larger cities of Michigan and believe it or not our primary connection other than freight trains, is one, two lane road, between Indianapolis and Springfield Illinois, the capital of Illinois. When still a teenager in the 1970s, a regional passenger rail system was proposed and defeated that would have connected all these cities for movement on a daily basis to all the people in the region. If we would have had that over the last 50 years, we wouldn’t still be stuck in this quagmire of connectivity. Train travel, either conventional or ultra fast is seen all over Europe and the Asia and the east and west coasts of this country yet one area that could use it the most (the mid-west) wallows in obscurity. The mid-west helps pay for the trains systems on the coasts while only Chicago has a major rail service which is very limited in terms of connecting to the region as a whole.