Getting to Indianapolis from Chicago

Chicago and Indianapolis are about 180 miles apart, three hours or so by car. The bus is the workhorse on this route, with a dozen trips a day. The train still runs, but only three days a week, and flying makes sense mainly if you're connecting. Everything below works in both directions.

At the Chicago end, see getting to Chicago for the stations and our airports page for O'Hare and Midway.

By bus

FlixBus and Greyhound list about 12 trips a day, and the fastest take about four hours. The first version of this page said three and a half. In Indianapolis, buses use the station inside Union Station at 350 S. Illinois St., the same building as Amtrak. There's also a curbside stop at 176 W. Vermont St. and one at the airport. In Chicago, check your ticket, since Flix uses the Greyhound station at 630 W. Harrison St., the curbside stop outside Union Station and a stop on Cumberland Avenue near O'Hare.

The first version also pointed readers to Megabus. Its parent went bankrupt in 2024, and megabus.com now sells seats on other companies' buses. See getting to Chicago for more.

The Cardinal

The first version of this page promised several Amtrak trains a day. Today there's one, the Cardinal, a New York to Chicago train that takes the long way through Washington, West Virginia and Cincinnati. It runs three days a week, and Chicago to Indianapolis takes about five hours, stopping at Dyer, Rensselaer, Lafayette (for Purdue) and Crawfordsville.

The schedule isn't friendly. Heading to Indianapolis, the train leaves Chicago Union Station on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings and gets into Indianapolis Union Station close to midnight. Heading to Chicago, it leaves Indianapolis at dawn on Thursdays, Saturdays and Mondays and arrives mid-morning. The Cardinal starts its westbound run in New York the day before, so delays upstream can push that arrival back. Check the times on Amtrak before you count on it.

Until 2019, the Hoosier State covered Chicago to Indianapolis on the four days the Cardinal doesn't run. Indiana stopped paying for it, and Amtrak ran its last Hoosier State on June 30, 2019 (Wikipedia). So on the other four days, it's the bus or the car.

Driving

It's about 180 miles, nearly all on I-65, which runs straight north across the flat farmland of western Indiana past Lafayette. Near Gary, take I-90 (the Indiana Toll Road and the Chicago Skyway) or I-80/94 (the Borman Expressway, no toll) into the city, and listen to the traffic report before you choose. Plan on about three hours, or closer to four at rush hour or on a Friday afternoon. The stretch from the Borman to the Dan Ryan is where most of that extra time goes.

Indianapolis is on Eastern Time and Chicago on Central, so you gain an hour driving north and lose it coming back. The switch happens in northwest Indiana, not at the state line.

Flying

From Indianapolis International, American Eagle and United Express fly to O'Hare, and Southwest flies to Midway. The flight is about an hour. Once you add the drive to the airport and security, it's no faster than driving, so fly only if you're connecting to another flight at O'Hare. US Airways and Continental, named in the old version of this page, merged into American and United years ago.

Photo by J. Stephen Conn