Riders board Plainfield-bound Route 755 bus at the Chicago Union Station. (Photo by Igor Studenkov/for Chronicle Media)

Pace board of directors voted unanimously on July 16 to make the service improvements that debuted last August permanent.

The changes first approved on Aug. 14, 2024, affected west suburban routes 330 and 331, and the four commuter express routes that use I-55/Stevenson expressway to shuttle workers from southwest suburbs to Chicago. Routes 330 and 331 more off-peak, evening and weekend service, and Rout 331 got Sunday service for the first time. The commuter express services, which had their schedules cut during the pandemic as the demand plunged, got some of that frequency back, with more off-peak and evening options.

As usual, Pace introduced the service improvements as a pilot to see whether the ridership increased. All changes resulted in increased ridership to some extent or another. But while Pace is happy with the increase, the transit agency is facing a fiscal cliff as stimulus funding that filled in for decreased revenue is expected to run out in the end of this year.

Pace is currently developing three budgets — one that assumes the state comes through with the extra funding to fill the gap, one that assumes that the state would come through with more ambitious $1.5 billion in transit funding, and one that assumes that it doesn’t. Pace spokesperson Maggie Daly Skogsbakken told Chronicle Media that reversing some of the increases isn’t off the table in the third scenario.

“These services, like all our services, will be evaluated if a funding solution is not identified,” she said.

Corridor Routes

Routes 330 and 331 both primarily serve major suburban north-south corridors and provide connections between multiple Metra and ‘L’ lines. The Chicagoland rail systems use the hub-and-spoke model, with lines converging at the Loop. The north-south bus routes let riders make the connections without having to head downtown and then back out.

As Chronicle Media previously reported, the service improvements were part of a larger push to improve service on major corridor routes in suburban Cook County and collar counties where Pace believes there’s unmet demand and more opportunities

Route 330 travels between O’Hare Multi-Modal Facility and Archer/Harlem bus terminal near Midway Airport. OMMF is the O’Hare Airport’s intermodal hub, where riders can transfer to intercity buses, North Central Service Metra Line, and Pace’s Route 250 and Pulse Dempster express bus service, which both primarily serve Dempster Street corridor.

Route 330 also stops at Rosemont’s ‘L’ and Metra stations, Milwaukee District West Metra Line’s Mannheim station in Franklin Park, Union Pacific West Metra line’s Bellwood station and BNSF Line’s La Grange Road station. The La Grange station doubles as an Amtrak station for Carl Sandburg/Illinois Zephyr station, which provides two round trips to destinations in southwest Illinois.

The pilot increased service frequencies throughout the week, so that riders wait an average of every 30 minutes during rush hour and every 60 minutes off peak. Saturday hours were extended, with the last buses heading out at 10:30 p.m. instead of around 8 p.m.

Daly Skogsbakken said that, since the pilot launched, Route 330’s Saturday ridership increased by 22.1 percent, from an average of 649 riders a day to an average of 793 riders a day.

Most Route 331 trips operate between the Cumberland Blue Line ‘L’ station in Chicago and Brookfield Village Hall, but on weekdays, one of every two-three trips travel between Cumberland and the La Grange Road train station instead.

Route 331 serves BNSF Line’s downtown Brookfield station, Union Pacific West’s Maywood station and the River Grove station, the last station shared by Milwaukee District West and North Central Service lines before they split at Franklin Park. It serves several major west suburban destinations such as Hines medical campus, Triton community college and Brookfield Zoo.

Under the pilot, the bus started running on Sundays once every 50 minutes, between 6:45 a.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday service hours were extended, from 7:53 a.m. and 6:20 p.m. to between 5:55 a.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Daly Skogsbakken said that Sunday ridership has averaged 153 riders a day, which she said, “is consistent with ridership on other routes with similar levels of Sunday/holiday service.” The Saturday ridership increased 29.8 percent from an average of 247 riders to an average of 320 riders.

Commuter expresses

The four I-55/Stevenson Expressway routes serve southwest suburbs that have little to no Metra service, taking riders from the suburbs to Chicago in the morning and returning them in the afternoon. The routes use coach-style buses, and riders pay higher $5 “premium” fares.

Route 755 runs between Plainfield and Chicago Union Station, serving Illinois Medical District and University of Illinois Chicago. Most, but not all, buses stop at an Old Chicago Park-n-Ride facility in Bolingbrook. For the pilot, Pace added two morning trips, two early afternoon trips, two afternoon rush hour trips and an evening trip that left Union Station at 6.25 p.m. All the new trips stop in Bolingbrook, so it was a net gain for DuPage County riders.

Daly Skogsbakken said that Route 755 ridership has increased 11.1 percent from an average of 601 riders to an average of 668 riders.

Routes 850, 851 and 855 serve the same parts of the Loop and Magnificent Mile, but diverge in the suburbs. Route 855 only serves Burr Ridge and Plainfield, while Route 850 also makes intermediate stops in Bolingbrook and Romeoville. Route 851 only serves south Bolingbrook and Romeoville.

When Pace initially announced the pilot, Erik Llewellyn, Pace’s chief planning officer, told the board that the three routes will get eight new morning trips and two afternoon trips, but that his team was still finalizing how those trips will be distributed across each route. He added that other aspects of the schedule would be tweaked.

“[Riders] will see new stop patterns, updated running times to reflect existing travel times in the corridor, more consistent frequency and more limited stop service,” Llewellyn said.

The schedule they settled on had Route 851 only operate in the morning, and the other two routes got more trips. The new morning schedule benefited Plainfield and Romeoville more than Bolingbrook, but it still translated into service increase for Bolingbrook riders. The new schedule noticeably introduced two late morning Route 850 trips — one that leaves Canterbury Park-n-Ride in Bolingbrook in 9:28 a.m., and one that leaves the park-n-ride at 10:58 a.m.

The afternoon schedule added two Route 850 trips midafternoon, increased rush hour frequency for both routes 850 and 855 and added two Route 850 evening trips that leave the Magnificent Mile at 6:25 p.m. and 7:20 p.m. Even though Route 851 no longer operates in the afternoons, the service frequency for DuPage County riders improved overall.

Daly Skogsbakken said the overall ridership on the three routes has increased 6.4 percent, from an average of 700 riders to an average of 745 riders.