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Pace (transit)
Suburban bus and paratransit service in the Chicago metropolitan area From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Pace Suburban Bus (Pace) delivers safe and efficient transit services, moving people throughout metropolitan Chicago to work, school, and other regional destinations. Pace also is the sole paratransit provider in northeastern Illinois, operating one of the largest paratransit services in the United States for riders with disabilities.[4]
Pace is one of the three service boards financially supported by the Regional Transportation Authority. The three service boards, including Pace, Metra, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), were created by the 1983 RTA Act. The law, in part, unified disparate suburban bus agencies that existed at the time and established the formula that provides funding to the service boards, which make up the transit network in northeastern Illinois.[4]
Today, Pace’s family of services provides affordable, innovative, and environmentally responsible transit options for residents living in 274 municipalities located throughout Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties. As one of the largest bus providers in North America, Pace covers 3,677 square miles, an area that is about 15 times the size of the City of Chicago, serving approximately 127,000 daily riders.[4]
Pace is headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and the agency is governed by a 13-member Board of Directors, 12 of which are current and former suburban mayors who represent their respective communities in the northeastern Illinois region. The remaining director is the Commissioner of the Chicago Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities, who represents the City of Chicago's paratransit riders.[5]
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Service area
Pace serves the northeastern Illinois region, which includes Cook County (where the City of Chicago is located), as well as the region's collar counties, which include DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties. Some of Pace's bus routes also serve parts of Chicago and Northwest Indiana. In some areas, notably Evanston, River Forest, Oak Park, Cicero, and Skokie, both Pace and the CTA provide bus service.
Many of Pace's route terminals are located at CTA rail stations and bus terminals and Metra stations. The CTA and Pace have shared a payment system since 2014 called Ventra. Ventra accounts are required to obtain transfers.[6] In 2015, Metra was added to the Ventra app.[7]
Pace buses generally have longer bus routes than CTA buses. Due to its geographic service area, service is provided by 11 operating divisions (see below), as well as under agreements with several municipalities and private operators (school bus and motor coach companies).
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Services
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Pace Bus
The majority of Pace bus routes run daily, seven days a week. Other routes run Monday through Saturday, weekdays only, or weekday rush hours only. One route, 352 Halsted, runs 24 hours a day/seven days a week, and four routes 390, 392, 395 and 890, run only for weekday UPS shifts changes.
During weekday rush hours, Pace buses are authorized to use the shoulder of the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, Edens Expressway, and Stevenson Expressway to avoid traffic congestion.[8]
Pace Pulse
Pulse Milwaukee Line
Pace began operating a new rapid transit service between the Jefferson Park Transit Center and Golf Mill Shopping Center on August 11, 2019.[9] The new Pulse service overlaps with part of Pace route 270 which saw a reduction in the route's service frequency.[10]
Pulse Dempster Line
The Pace Pulse line on Dempster Street spans Evanston, Skokie, and Des Plaines, and terminates at O'Hare International Airport.[11] The Dempster Pulse line inaugural run was on August 13, 2023 with a full launch on October 29, 2023.[12] The route connects to the Chicago "L" with the CTA Purple Line's Davis station and the CTA Yellow Line's Dempster–Skokie station. It also connects to Metra stations at Evanston Davis Street on the Union Pacific North Line and Des Plaines on the Union Pacific Northwest Line.
Priority Corridors for Future Development
Pace is also considering adding routes from Cermak Road, Harlem Avenue and Roosevelt Road. All three proposed routes start from the southwest side of Chicago and provide routes to either the West Suburbs or in the case of the Harlem route, further south in Chicago.[13]
I-90 Express
In December 2016, Pace began an on-highway BRT express bus service between Rosemont Transportation Center and Elgin on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway. The service uses "flex lanes" to avoid traffic and features train station like stops.[14][15]
ADA services
Pace is responsible for ADA paratransit service in its service area, and, effective July 1, 2006, for paratransit service in Chicago.[16] Pace also coordinates various Dial-a-Ride projects, usually sponsored by various municipalities and townships.[17] One of the largest is Ride DuPage, sponsored by Du Page County Human Services.[18] All Pace buses are wheelchair accessible and have racks accommodating one bicycle, available during all hours of operation. Pace claims itself as the nation's largest paratransit service provider, providing approximately 17,000 daily trips on paratransit, dial-a-ride and ADvAntage vanpools.[19]
Vanpool incentive program
Pace operates a Vanpool Incentive Program, where groups save by commuting together in a van owned and maintained by Pace and driven by one of the participants.[20] There is also a Municipal Vanpool Program, under which Pace provides a van to a municipality, for any public transportation purpose (such as demand response service for senior citizens).[21]
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Route list
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Operational structure
Given Pace's large service area, it is broken up into 11 operating divisions. Additionally, Niles, Highland Park and Schaumburg operate routes on behalf of Pace.
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Bus fleet
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In 2011, Pace received its first diesel-electric hybrid buses from Orion Bus Industries, a couple of years before the latter folded. These Orion VII buses were the first buses in the Pace fleet to not be powered directly by diesel. In 2015, Pace received its first fleet of compressed natural gas buses from ElDorado National; these buses operate mainly in the southern suburbs.[citation needed]
- Individual units in a series may be retired or out of service (also, a few units in a mostly retired series might still be operating).
- No buses with fleet numbers ending in 13 (20400–20485 consists of 85 buses, and there is no 20413).
- Some routes operated with paratransit or community vehicles.
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References
External links
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