Monday afternoon at the Meadows bus stop on 38th Street, Jadarius Williams was trying out IndyGo’s recently launched Purple Line.
“I don’t like it, because it’s confusing,” he said. He rides the bus often but wasn’t sure which direction the bus to 42nd Street and Post Road would be coming from. The Purple Line starts from the Julia Carson Transit Center and shares stops with the Red Line before branching off to go north and east to Lawrence.
Sebastian Caicedo, a transit ambassador for IndyGo wearing a Purple Line beanie, helped Williams figure out which bus to take. Williams took a purple stick-on cellphone wallet from Caicedo and put it on his phone case before boarding the eastbound bus toward Fort Harrison State Park.
Caicedo has been answering the questions of riders on bus lines for two years after he sold his car during the pandemic and decided to use public transportation. He got a free pass to do it. Up and down the Purple Line on Monday, transit ambassadors like Caicedo, IndyGo supervisors, a fare inspector and the CEO were out to help people navigate the new route. While there were a few opening day jitters, and customers trying to figure out how the new bus rapid transit line works, overall things went fairly smoothly.
Harold Jay, a 65-year-old eastsider, sat at the Meadows bus stop with a bag of hot Cheetos, talking about how the bus system has expanded in Indy.
“I love riding the bus,” he said. “I got a steady ride back and forth — why not? Plus gas is ridiculous sometimes.”
So far, Jay thinks the Purple Line gets to stops a little quicker than the Red Line. He boarded the next eastbound bus to visit his sister on Post Road.
There were some first-day glitches. His bus stopped at 38th Street and Post Road, and everyone hopped off when an IndyGo worker announced it would be out of service — it’s unclear why — and everyone switched to a bus that was following close behind.
Another worker handed out brochures about MyKey, the system people use to pay fares, before realizing all the ones she held were in Spanish only. A few men stood around chatting while they waited for the next bus to pull up, saying the new line needed to iron out a few issues.
One of the men, Maurice Mann, an eastsider, recently started riding the bus. His impression of the Purple Line is that it’s a lot faster to use than standard routes.
“It’s quicker. At least they let you know the bus times so you don’t have to guess,” he said, while a bus driver attempted to pull up to the curb. It was like watching someone back up a truck with a trailer attached for the first time.
The driver laughed out the open window and joked, “Get me out of here.”
She lightly scraped the curb and parked the back door of the bus a few feet away from the platform. A man held an older woman’s arm, helping her cross the gap to get on board.
After a smooth ride the rest of the way to the Fort Ben/Ivy Tech stop, the driver took a break for a few minutes before turning the bus around to take it back to the Julia Carson Transit Center. It took just over an hour to go the 15.2 miles from Lawrence back downtown.
On the way back, a fare inspector stood in the door at each stop and asked to see people’s bus passes. At one stop, she asked a man with a bike in a fuzzy sweatshirt if he had a pass.
He said no. She asked, “Can you afford to buy one?” Again, he said no.
She apologized and turned him away. People are supposed to pay fares and validate their fare cards on the Purple Line. Carrie Black, an IndyGo spokesperson, said the goal is for riders to validate fares before the bus arrives so they can just hop on and go.
Shantell Steward, who lives on the Far Eastside, chatted with the fare inspector about her customer service skills and whether the bus was too cold. Steward was bundled up in a red coat.
She rides the bus every other day, if not every day. So far, she said, her Purple Line experience was “going pretty smooth.”
Before the Purple Line, she said, some people who wanted to work couldn’t get to employers on the east side. When people who ride the bus don’t have access, Steward said, it makes them feel unwelcome in the community.
“I think it’s very good. I wish they would’ve come up with this before,” Steward said.
Mirror Indy reporter Sophie Young covers services and resources. Contact her at sophie.young@mirrorindy.org.
How to ride the Purple Line
The Purple Line runs 15.2 miles and connects Lawrence to downtown Indianapolis.
From Lawrence, the Purple line will run from Ivy Tech Community College at 59th Street, south to Post Road and then west along 38th Street. The Purple Line will meet the Red Line at 38th and Park Avenue as the line heads to the Julia M. Carson Transit Center downtown.
The buses will run every 15 to 20 minutes — increasing to five to seven minutes when it merges with the Red Line — from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday.
To pay, load fares to a MyKey account with the app or to a reusable MyKey card at a ticket station vending machine or at the transit center. Tap the card or scan the QR code from the mobile app to validate bus fare before the bus arrives.
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