Pace plan would eliminate, reduce dozen of bus routes
Bob Roberts Reporting
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- Pace is providing few details, but WBBM has learned that the suburban bus and regionwide paratransit agency maps a big reduction in service in the new year, along with two increases in regionwide paratransit fares in two months.
When Pace's 2010 budget is released Oct. 14, it will call for the elimination of 28 bus routes on weekdays, 12 on Saturdays and four on Sundays, with reductions on eight other routes.
A Pace spokesman refused comment prior to the Oct. 14 meeting. While it is unclear if Pace will seek to increase fares on its suburban bus network, paratransit riders will be hit hard again.
Pace just completed hearings on plans to set a regionwide paratransit fare of $3, beginning Nov. 1. The 2010 Pace budget calls for yet another increase in paratransit fares to $4.50 one-way in the city and $3.50 in the suburbs.
Pace estimates that 80 percent of its paratransit users are in the city.
As recently as two years ago, the round-trip paratransit fare in the city was $3.50. Pace insists that its costs have increased dramatically since signing new contracts with its paratransit carriers.
Paratransit activist Jim Watkins said he has spent a day on the telephone fielding anguished calls from paratransit riders and urging political and RTA officials to step in.
"This is unfathomable that this could happen," Watkins said. "This is bad. This is very bad. This will affect the quality of peoples' lives in ways I couldn't begin to describe to people."
Watkins said most paratransit riders are at the bottom of the earnings scale and that many have trouble allotting more than $100 a month to food, let alone trips to and from the store.
Paratransit activists want to see two audits of Pace service that have been completed in the past year and have not been released.
The paring of routes also means the paring of paratransit service, since federal law, which mandates paratransit service, only requires it to be provided within three-quarters of a mile of a Pace bus line, and only during hours when regular service is provided.
The proposed paratransit fare is the maximum that could currently be provided. Federal law limits paratransit fares to twice the regular bus fare, even though the cost of providing the service is many times higher.
Watkins says that Pace can expect to hear plenty of criticism from riders of all types at its 14 public hearings on the 2010 budget, to begin Oct. 19.
Service would be eliminated on the following routes:
326/West Irving Park
451/Southeast Homewood
452/Northeast Homewood
460/Hazel Crest
535/Fox Valley Shuttle
616/The Chancellory Connection
637/Wood Dale-Rosemont CTA
643-645/Northwest Elmhurst-Elmhurst Industrial
654/South Glen Ellyn
661/Southwest Westmont
668/Burr Ridge-Hinsdale
669/Western Springs-Indian Head Park
676/Naperville-Cress Creek
685/Naperville-West Wind Estates
687/Naperville-Farmstead
689/Naperville-Hobson Village
690/Arlington Heights Road
696/Woodfield-Arlington Heights-Randhurst
699/Palatine-Woodfield-Elk Grove
711/Wheaton-Addison
750/Country Club Hills
753/Matteson
767/Congress-Douglas-Prairie Stone
781/North Naperville Office Complex
821/Woodridge-Belmont
822/Woodridge-Lisle
1012/Evergreen Park-Prairie Stone
Saturday service would be dropped on these routes:
234/Wheeling-Des Plaines
304/Cicero-LaGrange
320/Madison Street
348/128th Street Riverdale Connection
367/University Park
422/Linden CTA-Glenview-Northbrook Court
423/Linden CTA-The Glen-Harlem
528/Aurora Transportation Center-Copley Hospital
529/Randall Road-Fifth Street
535/Fox Valley Shuttle
715/Central DuPage
747/DuPage Connection
Sunday service would end on the following routes:
209/Busse Highway
223/Elk Grove-Rosemont CTA
304/Cicero-LaGrange
366/Park Forest-Chicago Heights
Service hours would be reduced on the following routes:
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