Northwest Suburban Bus Routes Get Longer Hours, More Frequent Service

Pace launched service improvements on six routes throughout the Chicago area effective last Sunday (Dec.7). Four of those routes serve the Journal & Topics area.

This is the last of a series of schedule improvements the suburban bus agency made throughout 2025. The idea is generally to improve service frequency and beef up off-peak, evening and weekend service where Pace believes there is demand. Those schedule improvements are launched as pilots. If, after around six months, the agency sees ridership increases, the Pace Board of Directors will vote to make them permanent.

 

Route 208

Route 208 primarily serves the Golf Road corridor, running between Evanston and Schaumburg. It notably stops at Golf Mill Mall, Oakton College’s Maine Township campus, downtown Des Plaines and Woodfield Mall.

On weekdays, the new schedule adds more early morning trips and late night trips, so that the service starts at 4:53 a.m. instead of 5:30 a.m., and ends at around midnight rather than 11 p.m. Some eastbound evening trips that used to only run between Schaumburg and Des Plaines have been extended to Evanston. While off-peak weekday service tended to run once an hour, Route 208 now runs around once every 30 minutes until 10 p.m.

On Saturdays, the service starts about an hour earlier and ends an hour later, and the buses now run every 30-40 minutes most of the day, including in the evenings. On Sunday, service starts around 90 minutes earlier and ends almost 90 minutes later, and also gets more frequent service in the mornings and evenings.

 

Route 223

Route 223, which connects Rosemont and the Elk Grove Business Park, is essentially three routes. All buses follow the same route until the intersection of Touhy Avenue and Elmhurst Road, then diverge. Route 223-W serves the north and west sections of the business park, Route 223-E serves the area south of Touhy Avenue and Route 223-X, which mostly operates on weekend evenings, serves parts of both. 

Route 223 changes only affect the Saturday schedule. Most trip times were shifted by a few minutes. The new schedule most notably filled the service gap between 9 a.m. and noon, so that buses now run once every hour between early morning and late afternoon. Westbound 12:05 p.m. and 3:34 p.m. 223-E buses that used to only run west of Touhy/Elmhurst now start at the Rosemont CTA station. Afternoon order of buses was reshuffled, so that 223-E trips are now 223-W trips, and vice-versa. The last eastbound 223-W trip is now a 223-X trip. 

 

Route 290

Route 290 primarily serves the Touhy Avenue corridor, between the Howard CTA station near the Chicago/Evanston border and the Cumberland CTA station near the Chicago/Park Ridge border, serving Niles and Park Ridge. 

During rush hour and in late evenings, some buses don’t make the entire trip, instead turning around at one of the mid-points. The weekday schedule tweeks this slightly to create more options for riders traveling from the Uptown Park Ridge station to Chicago. 

On Saturdays, the bus gets one extra early morning trip and two late evening trips, ensuring that most riders don’t have to wait longer than 45 minutes for a bus. Before that, some evening heads were as long as 90 minutes. On Sundays, the service between Uptown Park Ridge and Howard starts almost 90 minutes earlier, at 5:53 a.m.

 

Route 606

This route is the local version of the Route 600 express bus, serving Rosemont, Des Plaines, Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights and Rolling Meadows. Most buses run between Rosemont and Schaumburg’s Northwest Transportation Center serving business parks, commercial strips and residential areas along Elmhurst Road, Algonquin Road and Golf Road. 

The new schedule beefs up weekday service. The route starts running slightly earlier and stops running almost 90 minutes later, until a little after midnight. The service frequencies increased slightly. The off-peak service went from once every 25 minutes to once every 20-24 minutes, while rush hour service went from every 15 minutes to every 11-14 minutes. The new schedule increases a number of trips serving Schaumburg’s Woodfield corporate campus and tweaks the way it serves Hyatt Regency Schaumburg complex, so that there are more morning, evening and rush hour options, but fewer off-peak options.

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