Former Lakewood village president Erin Smith recently gave a presentation to the County Board on how “2024 has been a transformative year for Pace. (Since she has been out of office going on eight years, one wonders why she is still in this position.)
A friend of the McHenry County Blog dissected the budget and came up with some interesting figures that Erin left out.
In 2024, the average cost per rider was over $13, with a subsidy from taxpayers of almost $11.
Digging a little deeper, the average trip is only about 2.5 miles, which means it would be cheaper just to pay for cab [uber of Lyft] service.
And we all see Pace buses riding around empty.
This isn’t an optical illusion.
The buses operate at about 5% of capacity or less.
