Northbound Route 315 Pace bus arrives at Austin/Lake Green Line “L” station on the Chicago side of Chicago/Oak Park border. (Photo by Igor Studenkov/for Chronicle Media)

Pace suburban bus agency is planning another service increase pilot — this time for two routes in the west suburbs and the southwest suburbs.

In 2024 and 2025, the transit operator set aside to expand service on the six-month trial basis where it believed there might be unmet demand. The focus has been on the routes serving major corridors that connect riders to Metra and/or “L” stations. Other increases included service to the major destinations, such as Naval Station Great Lakes base in Lake County.

The latest round of increases will involve Route 315, which primarily serves Austin Boulevard between Oak Park and Stickney, and Route 311, which primarily services the section of Oak Park Avenue between Chicago and Lyons. Route 383, which primarily serves the section of Cicero Avenue south of Midway Airport, will get service improvements and route tweaks. And Route 381, which serves the 95^th Street corridor west of the Dan Ryan Expressway, will get smaller improvements to pave the way for Pulse Arterial Rapid Transit express service.

The changes were presented to the Pace Board of Directors during its Jan. 15 meeting. While the board didn’t take any issues with the changes themselves, the presentation led Director Thomas Marcucci, who represents DuPage County, to complain about the preliminary proposals for ReVision, a system-wide overhaul Pace has been developing since 2023. He said he was troubled that it could spell service cuts for the collar counties.

Western suburbs

Route 311 starts in Chicago’s Galewood neighborhood, following Oak Park Avenue through all the way to 47^th Avenue, where it turns west until Lawndale Avenue. The route connects to Green and Blue “L” line Oak Park stations, and BNSF Metra Line’s Berwyn station.

Erik Llewellyn, Pace’s chief planning officer, told the board that the route got its service reduced during the pandemic. He said that the ridership has since rebounded, justifying returning the service closer to pre-COVID-19 levels while also increasing weekend service.

On weekdays, the service will begin around 1½ hours earlier and end about three hours later, so the last buses will run at around 10:30 p.m. The service frequency, which varies between 30 minutes and an hour depending on the time of day, will increase to around 30 minutes across the board.

On Saturdays, the service would similarly begin about an hour earlier and end around three hours later. The headways would also decrease, going from 30-60 minutes to 30-45 minutes. Sunday service would keep the current headways, but service would start two hours earlier, around 7 a.m., and end about an hour later, around 7 p.m.

Llewellyn said that the schedule would be adjusted to improve on-time performance — something that has been an issue on the busy corridor, especially during rush hour.

Route 315 starts off at Austin/Lake Green Line “L” station, where several CTA and Pace buses that serve Oak Park also originate. It follows Chicago/Oak Park border between Lake Street and Roosevelt Road and mostly keep going straight until 35^th Street, where it makes a long loop to reach Morton College. The route connects to Austin Blue Line “L” station and directly serves Morton East High School in Cicero.

Llewellyn said that Pace realized there was unmet demand while collecting data for the ReVision plan.

“Route 315, which operates in a key regional corridor, Austin Boulevard, was noted during the existing conditions review for its higher level of performance, even though it has lower level service than comparable routes,” he said.

He said that, on weekdays, Route 315 would start about 30 minutes earlier, at 5 a.m., and end about an hour later, at 11 p.m. Rush-hour service frequency would increase from about once every half an hour to once every 30 minutes.

On Saturdays, service would begin about 30 minutes earlier, at around 5:30 a.m. and end around two hours and 45 minutes later, at 10:45 p.m. Sunday service would begin an hour earlier, at around 6 a.m., and end almost three hours later, a little after 10 p.m. Instead of running once an hour, it would run anywhere between 20-60 minutes on Saturdays and between 30-60 minutes on Sundays.

Southwest Suburbs

Route 383 starts at the Midway Airport Orange “L” line station and mostly follows Cicero Avenue, detouring to serve the Rivercrest Shopping Center and ending at Oak Forest Health Center. It connects to Rock Island District Metra Line’s Oak Forest station. On Saturdays, about half of the trips don’t go past 103^rd Street, with the buses instead turning east and terminating at 104^th Street/Pulaski Road bus terminal.

Llewellyn said that, with Oak Forest Health Center campus being demolished, Pace needed a new end point. With the pilot, Pace will officially cut the route back to 159^th Street, near the Metra station. All Saturday buses will serve the entire route.

Under the new schedule, weekday service will end three hours later, a little after 11 p.m., while Saturday service will start about an hour earlier, at around 5:30 p.m., and end around 3.5 hours later, a little before 11 p.m. Sunday service will begin about four hours earlier, at around 5:30 a.m., and end about hour hours later, a little after 10 p.m. Weekday and Saturday service frequency will increase to every 30 minutes, but Sunday buses will continue running every hour.

Route 381 runs between 95^th/Dan Ryan Red Line “L” station and Palos Hills’ Moraine Valley College, mostly following the 95^th Street corridor. It connects to Rock Island line’s 95^th Street-Beverly Hills station and SouthWest Service Metra Line’s Oak Lawn station.

Llewellyn said that Pace wanted to increase hours in anticipation of Pulse service coming to the corridor. Pulse buses only stop at major destinations, and they get signal priority on certain segments. If the existing Pulse service on Milwaukee Avenue and Dempster Street is any indication, Pace will keep route 381 around, but its frequency will be reduced.

The changes would bring the weekday service frequency closer to what’s standard on the Pulse corridor, going from 30-60 minutes to 15-30 minutes.

Pace executive director Melinda Metzger told the board that, even if Pulse wasn’t coming, “we need to put in more service.”

“The ridership is already there,” she said. “I’ve ridden it lately — there’s constant ridership and we don’t have enough service there.”

ReVision Backlash

In November 2024, Pace released three preliminary concepts for system-wide route restructuring. Two scenarios assumed that its funding would increase by 50 percent, with Plus 50 Ridership scenario focusing on improving service on major corridors and Plus 50 Coverage expanding routes at the expense of frequency. Plus 10 Limited Investment scenario assumes Pace’s funding would be near what it was pre-pandemic and calls for more limited improvements.

Plus 10 makes only minor changes to DuPage County services, and Plus 50 Coverage expands them, but Puls 50 Ridership reduces it.

Marcucci said that he had concerns about what’s been presented so far.

“I found it very interesting, and I also found it very scary,” he said. “I didn’t like a lot of what I heard, and I shared it with Melinda, and I shared that with some folks out of DuPage County.”

Marcuchi added that “the idea of withdrawing service from some areas completely or reducing services on some existing lines” went against what he saw as Pace’s major purpose — to provide service to “as many people as we can.”

He said that, when he heard ReVision mentioned in connection to Route 315 changes, he was worried that Pace was trying to rush some aspects of the overhaul before the board sign off on them.

Metzger said that they were simply using data collected during the ReVision study, and sought to allay fears that collar counties would be hurt by the changes.

“As part of ReVision study, we have stated that the money that is being put into the system by the collar counties stay in that area,” she said. “So, we are not going to be cutting back in one county to give all the funding to another county.”

Pace board chair Richard Kwasneski noted that the changes are introduced on the pilot basis, and that the board would need to vote on them to make them permanent.

Metzger said that she was conscious of the fact that the federal stimulus funding that helped Pace and other Chicago area transit agencies balance the budgets since the pandemic will run out next year.

“I understand that there’s a fiscal cliff, that may change, but, as the chairman indicated, these are not permanent,” she said. And we can eliminate what we put in for several reasons. One is that it doesn’t work, two is we just don’t have the funding to continue to do it.”