10/21/99
Shuttle buses from the Red and Brown Line 'L' station at Belmont will serve the Chicago Academy of Sciences' new Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum on Cannon Drive at Fullerton when the museum opens Saturday, October 23. The museum, across Fullerton from the Lincoln Park Zoo Rookery and Conservatory, expects to attract thousands of visitors from throughout the metropolitan area.
CTA shuttle bus service will run daily until December 12, when regular service on the #77 Belmont route will be extended to the museum from Diversey. Shuttle buses, with destination signs reading "Nature Museum Shuttle," will operate every 15 minutes, starting at 9:30 a.m. daily from the Belmont 'L' station. The last bus will leave the museum at 6:15 p.m. daily except on Wednesdays, when it will leave at 8:15 p.m. to serve the museum's later closing at 8 p.m.
"Extending buses to this new institution provides a service that most other city museums already enjoy," said CTA Chairman Valerie B. Jarrett, "and that is a direct connection to the 'L.' This past summer we extended bus service on two other east-west routes to beaches at 63rd Street and North Avenue that were also some distance from the 'L.' Here we'll be serving a museum as well as the Lincoln Park Zoo and Conservatory."
When it was founded in 1857, the Chicago Academy of Sciences was the city's first museum. For more than 100 years, it occupied a building at 2001 N. Clark, at the foot of Armitage, about five blocks south and west of its new location. Before it closed, the old museum was served by five CTA bus lines.
"The museum built a turnaround right in front that allows customers to board and alight buses away from busy street traffic," said CTA President Frank Kruesi. "Visitors will also be able to reach the museum from stops a block farther west for buses operating north and south on Stockton. Our #151 Sheridan buses use Stockton every day, #156 LaSalle buses run there on weekdays, and #145 Wilson/Michigan and #146 Marine-Michigan buses operate there on Sundays."
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