Clik here to view.
Pace Suburban Buses released some early concepts for what could be the most significant system-wide route overhaul in its 40-year history.
Pace has been teasing ReVision for over a year, but until recently, it hasn’t released any concrete proposals. During the Oct. 29 meeting of the Pace Board of Directors’ Joint Planning & Infrastructure Committee, consultant Daniel Constantino, of Jarrett Walker + Associates, presented three potential scenarios.
The first two proposals, dubbed “Plus 50 Ridership” and “Plus 50 Coverage,” rely on Pace getting more state investment than it got pre-pandemic. Plus 50 Ridership would invest that money in better serving major destinations and busier corridors. Plus 50 Coverage proposes expanding the route network to serve more places, at the expense of frequency. Constantino said that he would recommend that Pace proceed with some combination of the two.
He also shared the Plus 10 Limited Investment scenario, which assumes a return to Pace’s pre-pandemic service levels. The plan calls for only a few route changes and increased frequencies.
Notably, all three scenarios call for buses to operate on weekends at similar levels they do on weekdays. Currently, Pace has many routes that are either weekday-only or don’t operate on Sundays. In Evanston, for example, Route 213, which serves Green Bay Road north of Church Street and Chicago Avenue south on Church Street, doesn’t run on Sundays.
For the most part, the maps Constantino shared in his presentation looked at corridors and destinations, without diving deeper into how it might affect individual routes. But he used North Shore routes as examples — which give glimpses of how the changes might affect Evanston.
Pace spokesperson Maggie Daly Skogsbakken emphasized that the maps were far from final. The transit agency isn’t expected to finalize changes until the second half of next year. But the maps do serve as a starting point, something that Pace would build on.
Plus 50 Ridership
Some changes shown in the presentation echo what Pace proposed back in the early 2020 as part of a second phase of a broader overhaul of North Shore routes. Those plans were shelved during the pandemic.
Constantino explained that, for Plus 50 Ridership scenario, Jarrett Walker + Associates focused on routes where there’s enough demand to operate buses at least once every 30 minutes seven days a week.
Clik here to view.
Under the plan, Route 213 would no longer go east of the Davis Street CTA station, leaving Chicago Avenue south of Davis Street without bus service. The Purple L line runs parallel to that corridor, so there would be an alternative, but the bus route filled in the gap between the L stations.
More significantly, the plan would discontinue Route 215, which currently runs between the Howard CTA terminal and Old Orchard Mall. It serves Howard Street in Evanston and Skokie before turning north on Crawford Avenue. Under Plus 50 Ridership, the new Route 216 would replace a portion of that corridor as far as the intersection of Crawford Avenue and Oakton Street, where it would turn west on Oakton and continue west toward Des Plaines. Evanstonians who want to reach Old Orchard would need to transfer to the new Route 254 at Lincoln Avenue/Oakton Street intersection. The route would also continue to Skokie Courthouse, and it would run an average of once every 15 minutes — an improvement over Route 215’s current 20-30 minute average frequency.
Route 216 would run an average of once every half an hour, and the service frequency of Route 208 would increase from an average of once every 30-60 minutes to an average of once every 15 minutes.
Plus 50 Coverage
Constantino said that the goal was to try to have a route within half a mile of as many people as possible with Plus 50 Coverage.
Under this scenario, Route 215 would continue as is and get extended to Skokie Courthouse and the downtown Glenview/Metra Amtrak station. Route 216 would be added as well, which could increase service frequency along Howard Street.
Clik here to view.
Route 213 would be discontinued, and the section west of Davis Street station would get replaced with the new Route 260. The route would follow the same path as Route 213 as far as Northbrook Court Mall, then keep going north, connecting to Lake Cook Road Metra station before heading west on Dundee Road at least a far as Palatine.
For the most part, the routes would operate once every 40-60 minutes. Route 208 would run an average of once every 30 minutes.
Plus 10 Limited Investment
This scenario assumes that Pace gets its staffing back to pre-pandemic level and they’d get enough aid to plug in the budget hole that is currently filled by stimulus funds. It also assumes that fare box recovery ratio, a requirement that Pace makes at least half of its revenue through fares, would be reinstated. The requirement was relaxed during the pandemic.
The presentation didn’t provide a more detailed route breakdown for this scenario, but looking at the corridor level, Route 213 would run once every half an hour on Sundays. The map also suggests service similar to what Phase 2 of the North Shore Coordination Plan proposed for Route 226 — a route that would follow Howard Street as far as Skokie Boulevard, then use Skokie Boulevard to reach Oakton Street and continue west toward Park Ridge.
Daly Skogsbakken said all three concepts are far from final.
“These concepts will indeed inform our approach, but specific route changes and detailed planning will only be developed after we’ve gathered input from our board and the public,” she said. ” Our ultimate goal is to balance ridership and coverage based on the insights we receive, creating a system that serves as many people as effectively as possible.”
At the start of the meeting, Michael Kroll of the Evanston Transit Alliance advocacy group suggested his own changes — having Route 208, which mostly follows Golf Road outside Evanston, detour north to serve the Glenview train station, and extending Route 250/Dempster Pulse from its current west endpoint at O’Hare Multi-Modal Facility to Rosemont Transit Center, a Pace bus hub and the Blue Line L stations. Those changes, Kroll said, would improve transit connections.
“I believe it should have stops at Lake Street in Evanston, to service a dense residential area there,” he said.
Pace is planning to host workshops in November and December — two in-person and one virtual — and organize rider focus groups. Residents will also be able to share feedback online. Pace will work on the first draft of a plan throughout the first half of 2025.
For the latest info on the future ReVision workshops and other public outreach events, check out the project page.
Pace unveils plans for suburban bus service changes is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.