Pace Lays Out Wish List for Regional Bus Routes

The red lines show where Pace would like bus routes to run mainly outside of Chicago.

The red lines show where Pace would like bus routes to run mainly outside of Chicago.

Pace, the largely suburban public bus company, has released routes which it would like to run throughout the six-county area and beyond.

The proposed express routes in McHenry County.

The proposed express routes in McHenry County.

That’s the map above.

Within McHenry County, Pace would run one line from Waukegan through McHenry, down the blacktop to Downtown Crystal Lake, then, down McHenry Avenue and Randall Road into Kane County.

Another would run east from the intersection of Algonquin and Randall Roads.

That’s the intersection that is going to be re-configured, complete with double left hand turn lanes on Algonquin Road.

Where folks would get on and off buses at the intersection is a pretty good question.

Residents of the second largest township–Grafton–would have to take local service to hook up with these express lines.

So would those living in the Cary and Fox River Grove area.

The proposed routes reach way down into Kendall County, which is not in the Regional Transportation Authority area.

Pace Public Information Officer Patrick Wilmot wrote,

“Any extension into Kendall County is contingent upon Kendall County joining the RTA service area.

“Because this is a long-range plan looking potentially more than a decade into the future, the Route 30 portion in Oswego was designed based on the possibility that Kendall County could join the RTA, in which case this alignment would provide some connectivity to a proposed extension of the Metra BNSF line to Oswego while connecting Joliet and Auroras via the bus network.”

A sales tax would have to be imposed for Kendall County to join the RTA.

The rate would presumably be the same as in the collar counties–three-quarters of one percent.


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