West Evanston bus riders will be getting an early holiday gift this year.

On Dec. 21, CTA bus route 93, which primarily serves the street that’s called Dodge Avenue in Evanston and California Avenue in Chicago, will be extended further south, connecting to the Logan Square Blue Line L station.

Back in June, the Chicago Transit Authority announced that the route would be getting Sunday service starting in August and the Logan Square extension later this year. But officials didn’t give an exact date for the extension’s launch until a Nov. 25 virtual community meeting organized by Chicago Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sánchez, whose 33rd Ward the extension runs through.

The CTA didn’t respond to an earlier request for comment about the status of the extension.

During that meeting, most of the comments came from the residents of the 33rd Ward. But at least one commenter from Evanston said they were looking forward to the service, and urged CTA to extend evening hours.

Extension logistics

In Chicago, the route takes California Avenue all the way to Foster Avenue, then turns west, making a loop along Kimball, Lawrence and Kedzie avenues before heading back toward Evanston. It takes Dodge as far north as Emerson Street, then Emerson to downtown Evanston, ending at the Davis Street CTA station, where riders can also transfer to Purple Line trains, other buses and the Metra.

At Kimball Avenue, riders can transfer to the eponymous Brown Line L station.

In Evanston, it’s also one of the two bus routes that directly serves Evanston Township High School.

The extension, which was originally presented in June, will still have the buses turn west on Foster Avenue, but they will continue south on Kedzie Avenue instead, then turn east on Montrose Avenue until reaching California. The route will then take California as far south as Diversey Parkway. From there, it will follow a similar path as CTA route 67/Diversey to reach the Logan Square L station. That station has a bus turnaround, so buses can simply return the way they came.

Riders will still be able to transfer to the Brown Line — the bus will now stop near the Kedzie station’s main entrance.

Proposed bus route. Credit: CTA

Molly Poppe, CTA’s chief innovation officer, told the agency’s governing board back in June that this was one of several changes she recommended to make service more frequent and consistent, fill gaps, improve connections to other buses and trains, services, and tap into “new mobility patterns.” For route 93 in particular, she pointed to the fact that there’s no service along California Avenue or Kedzie Avenue between Foster Avenue and Addison Street.

During the Nov. 25 community meeting, Jon Czerwinski, CTA’s director of scheduling, said the service improvement will allow riders to transfer between the Blue Line, Brown Line, Purple Line and the Union Pacific North Metra without needing to change buses. It will also create a more direct connection to CTA route 94/California, he said, which serves California Avenue between Addison and 71st streets.

Community meeting

The Nov. 25 meeting was held over Zoom, and attendees could submit questions ahead of time or send them to John Cruz-Barcenas, Rodriguez Sanchez’s deputy chief of staff — so the RoundTable was not able to identify anyone who submitted questions.

Most questions focused on the extension’s impact on traffic and parking in portions of the Albany Park, North Center and Logan Square neighborhoods that the buses will pass through. But, according to Cruz-Barcenas, one question came from someone who lives near the Main Street and Dodge Avenue intersection.

Their question stated that they would be happy to use the extension, but that they hope the route can also get evening service until “at least 10-ish.”

While Evanston is served by multiple CTA and Pace bus routes, service mostly peters out after 9 p.m. Route 93 stops running in Evanston around 9:30 p.m. on weekdays and a little after 8 p.m. on weekends.

Czerwinski didn’t entirely rule out the possibility of longer evening service, saying that CTA may consider it depending on how many new riders the route extension will bring.

“Hopefully, we will be able to expand service on weekday evenings as opportunity and budget allows,” he said.

Later in the meeting, Czerwinski said service frequency will remain the same, at least for now.

Someone else asked how the CTA will judge the extension’s success, and whether the public will be able to see any metrics. Czerwinski said the agency will look at “ridership and how much ridership growth we’ll get out of the extension.”

He recommended checking out the CTA’s performance dashboard and ridership reports.

Back in June, Poppe also said that, together, Sunday service and the route extension are projected to bring in around 1,000 new daily riders and cost around $2.2 million a year. She clarified later that this dollar amount does not include extra fare revenue — assuming every new rider pays a standard bus fare of $2.25, it would generate at least $2,250 a day, or at least around an additional $82,250 a year.

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