A Burlington Trailways bus prepares to head out of Normal’s Uptown stations to Peoria. The state is looking at expanding bus services between Bloomington-Normal and Peoria. (Photo by Igor Studenkov/for Chronicle Media) 

The Illinois Department of Transportation has received a $1.2 million federal grant to study the feasibility of operating bus service between Bloomington-Normal and Peoria along the Interstate 74 corridor.  

This is part of IDOT’s broader effort to improve intercity service in Illinois, including bus service. There is already a private intercity bus service between Normal and Peoria, but the schedule is limited, and there is a potential to fill some gaps and improve connections with other intercity rail and bus services.  

IDOT spokesperson Paul Wappel told Chronicle Media that the study will look at what it would take to operate such a service and what the next steps would be. Many of the details, including what the schedule would look like, would be hashed out after IDOT determines if the service is viable.

IDOT funds three Amtrak routes that are either mostly or entirely within Illinois. Intercity bus services are a patchwork of routes operated by private companies and services operated by regional public transit providers.  

Two private intercity bus companies provide service between Normal’s Uptown Amtrak/bus station and Peoria. Burlington Trailways operates one trip a day in each direction; and Peoria Charter’s Peoria-to-O’Hare service makes one or two trips a day in each direction, but only some buses pick up and drop off passengers in Normal.  

Major Central Illinois cities, including Peoria, Bloomington and Normal, have bus systems that extend to neighboring towns, and some go even farther out. Danville Mass Transit’s Route 10 provides regular round-trip service to Champaign on weekdays once every two hours and on Saturdays once every four hours. 

But most intercity service providers are large transit districts that serve less populated, more rural parts of the state. Shawnee Mass Transit District in southern Illinois, for example, provides less frequent service between Carbondale and the cities of Cairo and Anna, among other destinations.  

State departments of transportation receive Section 5311 federal funds to support transit in rural areas. Wappel said IDOT uses 15 percent of those funds to support intercity services. He specifically mentioned Rides Mass Transit District, which covers much of southeastern Illinois,  

IDOT also uses some Section 5311 funding to subsidize two longer intercity routes — the twice-daily Chicago to Quad Cities service operated by Burlington Trailways, and crescent-shaped Greyhound route between Chicago, Rockford, Bloomington, Champaign and Danville. 

The current patchwork structure faces many challenges. A May 6 brief published by DePaul

The Uptown station’s waiting area. (Photo by Igor Studenkov/for Chronicle Media)

University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development professors Joseph P. Schwieterman and Ola Klimczak found that Illinois lagged behind its neighboring state when it comes to subsiding routes.  

“[Illinois] state-supported system encompasses just six daily bus operations (three roundtrips), making it far smaller than those in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin,” it stated. “All of these other states offer far greater coverage, with several having 18 or more daily operations.” 

The brief also noted that rural services, including intercity services “are largely unknown to travelers outside those regions.” The report recommended developing a unified brand name for intercity services, improving coordination between bus and rail services, and put together a stakeholder committee to figure out how to improve Illinois’ intercity transit. 

There is also the matter of funding and the ongoing struggles to hire enough drivers —issues that affects most transit providers post-pandemic. Rides Mass Transit District is ending its Carbondale-to-St. Louis service on Aug. 9. And SHOW BUS Public Transportation, which mostly serves rural counties in central Illinois as far west as Bloomington-Normal, suspended an intercity route in McLean County that includes connections to Pontiac, Bloomington and Normal, due to funding issues. 

Wappel said that the Bloomington-Normal/Peoria study is part of IDOT’s efforts to improve the intercity network. 

“There are parts of Illinois that lack public transit, and we are looking at ways to make public transit available for those communities that want it,” he said. “We are looking at the feasibility study because IDOT is planning and looking towards a more interconnected multimodal transportation system.” 

IDOT got the funding for the study through the federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant program. This year, the grant went to 148 projects, three of which are in Illinois. 

Wappel said that one of the things the study would look for is how the express service would be funded. He said that IDOT would most likely work with a regional transit provider like SHOW BUS. 

“If the express bus between Peoria and Bloomington-Normal is a viable project, we would look to partner with our transit agencies in a similar manner,” he said. 

While Peoria doesn’t currently have Amtrak service, the Chicago-St. Louis Lincoln Service state-supported Amtrak route and Texas Eagle long-distance Amtrak route stop at the Uptown station. Riders coming from further north don’t have to wait long to transfer to the Trailways bus in the morning and Peoria Charter bus in late afternoon, but there are no evening transfer options. Riders coming from the south don’t have to wait long for the morning bus, but to catch the Peoria bus, they must arrive four hours ahead of time. The situation is more complicated for riders coming from Peoria — every option requires them to wait at least an hour to catch a train in either direction. 

Would the express bus service be scheduled with Amtrak in mind? 

“That’s the hope, but we don’t know what the study results will be,” Wappel said.