Pace Construction

[artthouwill]

3 hours ago, RJL6000 said:

For the second time, the CNG garage construction is listed as "CANCELLED" for reasons not revealed. I am now speculating that there were either no bids for the RFP or all of the bids came in too high (specifically, a lot higher than Pace had anticipated).

This results in further delay of the CNG plans for Wheeling. If this keeps up, then Pace would have to cut service on all routes because it simply cannot afford to run its older buses forever without replacement (and that is the direct result of Pace announcing that it wouldn't order any more diesel buses). This could devastate transit in the entire Chicago metropolitan area, and might result in Chicagoland being one of the very first of the largest metropolitan areas to rely solely on the private automobile for all commuting.

I don't see a doomsday scenario.  Electrification of the fleet by 2040 is Pace's desire, not law.

Pace can defer delivery of the CNG buses if necessary.  I believe NW's 6323s are 2015s, which make them eligible for retirement in 2027.  Add to that Pace's propensity to run their buses for at least 15 years takes them to st least 2030.  While Oace intends to not order any more diesel buses, it might become necessary to order one more round of diesel buses depending on how things shake out. St some point Oace will figure out something to get Wheeling garage open,  be it a CNG garage or an electric one.  As long as diesels are still available,  there's no need for panic 

[Busjack]

It was mentioned at the July Board meeting about here that the Plainfield garage replaces a 100-year old facility and how packed the Joliet garage was. The ribbon cutting was held, but operations will start in September.

[renardo870]

17 hours ago, Busjack said:

It was mentioned at the July Board meeting about here that the Plainfield garage replaces a 100-year old facility and how packed the Joliet garage was. The ribbon cutting was held, but operations will start in September.

How many vehicles will Plainfield Garage hold? And will there be any restructuring of any of the Joliet and the Bolingbrook routes?

[artthouwill]

36 minutes ago, renardo870 said:

How many vehicles will Plainfield Garage hold? And will there be any restructuring of any of the Joliet and the Bolingbrook routes?

I thought it was around 150 buses.  Whatever the amount, it should fit everything Joliet has with room to spare.   To my knowledge all of the Heritage routes including the I 55 routes will operate from the new facility.  Pace hope's that they can now possibly expand the I 55 service now that the space constraints issue will be solved.

[renardo870]

5 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I thought it was around 150 buses.  Whatever the amount, it should fit everything Joliet has with room to spare.   To my knowledge all of the Heritage routes including the I 55 routes will operate from the new facility.  Pace hope's that they can now possibly expand the I 55 service now that the space constraints issue will be solved.

Yeah, I'm thinking that some routes on both sides of Weber Road would be a good start. 

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, renardo870 said:

Yeah, I'm thinking that some routes on both sides of Weber Road would be a good start. 

A couple of restructurings ago, there was a plan for a Weber Rd. flex route.

[MetroShadow]

16 hours ago, Busjack said:

A couple of restructurings ago, there was a plan for a Weber Rd. flex route.

Lordt, that takes me back. Reference: pp.299-301

[NewFlyerMCI]

5 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I thought it was around 150 buses.  Whatever the amount, it should fit everything Joliet has with room to spare.   To my knowledge all of the Heritage routes including the I 55 routes will operate from the new facility.  Pace hope's that they can now possibly expand the I 55 service now that the space constraints issue will be solved.

Hopefully this means weekend service, or at least for the 855. The demand is there for sure.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

The demand is there for sure.

Maybe you can explain what demand. Maybe to IMD, but I can't see downtown.

As it is, they aren't using all of the 30 MCIs they have now, plus the ones that are sitting at acceptance.

[NewFlyerMCI]

19 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Maybe you can explain what demand. Maybe to IMD, but I can't see downtown.

As it is, they aren't using all of the 30 MCIs they have now, plus the ones that are sitting at acceptance.

Weekend ridership has rebounded quicker than weekday ridership across the board for transit in general. It’s not far fetched to imagine that a couple of inbound morning trips and outbound afternoon evening trips would have 0 riders. There are are other examples of successful commuter bus routes with weekend ridership, such as some Transbay routes, NYC’s SIM combined service, multiple Sound Transit routes, etc. People do take transit for leisure.

I think they should run two pilots: one for weekend (or at least Saturday service), with reroute to serve more of State St and ending at Water Tower (where the 125 lays over) or Navy Pier. Maybe a combined 755/855 if you think the IMD demand is there.

The other for all-day, all-week bidirectional service running hourly, serving all the I-55 P&Rs to Midway similar to MTA Maryland’s 201 bus.

You’ve basically hit all the major destinations that aren’t off McFetridge for the first one, enticing people to come downtown, and for the second, you give the SW suburbs consistent access to the airport, and downtown (via the 25 min ride on the Orange line). Coach buses can handle the luggage, and Pace could entertain charging for overnight parking

[Busjack]

15 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

It’s not far fetched to imagine that a couple of inbound morning trips and outbound afternoon evening trips would have 0 riders.

That's exactly what happened to 889, which usually didn't leave Blue Island for Rosemont.

15 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

I think they should run two pilots: one for weekend (or at least Saturday service), with reroute to serve more of State St and ending at Water Tower (where the 125 lays over) or Navy Pier. ...

Water Tower Place is basically out of business (Macy's and Lord and Taylor are out of there, and Brookfield Properties gave a deed in lieu of foreclosure), State Street is now a college town, and anyone who doesn't want to shop online can shop in the suburbs.

15 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

...the other for all-day, all-week bidirectional service running hourly, serving all the I-55 P&Rs to Midway similar to MTA Maryland’s 201 bus.

Pace doesn't even run weekday service from the I-55 area to Midway. I'm not giving plugs, but there are plenty of airport transportation companies. The preference for door to airport service  is shown by that Continental quit running motor coaches to O'Hare about 30 years ago.

[Busjack]

5 hours ago, artthouwill said:

...

When the first 47 CNGs arrive next year, will they go straight to Wheeling?  Perhaps Wheeling garage will operate the Pulse routes and some other routes and as more arrive, more routes will transisitio to Wheeling.   Desplaines doesn't appear to have any room to house temporarily CNG tanks.

The issue is that bidding on the Wheeling garage was twice cancelled, and while the Open Solicitations page says it is in Planroom, it isn't.

Metzger only said that the buses would be  coordinated with the garage, not that they were coming next year. I also note that ENC has not announced a contract    (click ENC under News).

[BusHunter]

On 7/22/2022 at 10:31 PM, Busjack said:

It was mentioned at the July Board meeting about here that the Plainfield garage replaces a 100-year old facility and how packed the Joliet garage was. The ribbon cutting was held, but operations will start in September.

That was the question I had today. I think they said 135 buses the plainfield garage holds. Almost makes me wonder could they run Aurora and heritage out of the same garage. The I-294 express still seems years off the middle section doesn't get done yet til last.

[MetroShadow]

48 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

That was the question I had today. I think they said 135 buses the plainfield garage holds. Almost makes me wonder could they run Aurora and heritage out of the same garage. The I-294 express still seems years off the middle section doesn't get done yet til last.

Fox Valley is barely not even 30 years old, and the deadhead from the FV routes would be costly. Nah. 

(Expansion, maybe, but they need to offer Sunday service before even thinking)

[renardo870]

1 hour ago, MetroShadow said:

Fox Valley is barely not even 30 years old, and the deadhead from the FV routes would be costly. Nah. 

(Expansion, maybe, but they need to offer Sunday service before even thinking)

Maybe when the Naperville and Lisle/Bolingbrook routes come back online, maybe some if not all can be operated out of Plainfield, that is if First Student/Transit isn't operating those routes. @BusHunter, is the 135 buses that can be held at Plainfield all 40 footers or or a mix of 30/40 footers?

Edited September 4, 2022 by renardo870
Added a reference for First Student/Transit

[Busjack]

11 hours ago, renardo870 said:

Maybe when the Naperville and Lisle/Bolingbrook routes come back online, maybe some if not all can be operated out of Plainfield, that is if First Student/Transit isn't operating those routes. @BusHunter, is the 135 buses that can be held at Plainfield all 40 footers or or a mix of 30/40 footers?

It doesn't take @BusHunter. Since Joliet local service will be run out of Plainfield, it will have 30 foot buses.

And from what was said at the last board meeting about TNCs and vans, those feeders are not coming back. Naperville is getting On Demand out of some division.

[BusHunter]

12 hours ago, renardo870 said:

Maybe when the Naperville and Lisle/Bolingbrook routes come back online, maybe some if not all can be operated out of Plainfield, that is if First Student/Transit isn't operating those routes. @BusHunter, is the 135 buses that can be held at Plainfield all 40 footers or or a mix of 30/40 footers?

Yes it will be a mix, but long term it will be more mcis or highway buses/axess than anything. It has electric chargers for both buses and cars/vans there at the garage. It is slated to go all electric, so I don't know if electric mcis are coming, but the new eldorkos might have to find somewhere to live like aurora or some 3rd party lot, if they get electric replacements.

Don't know whats up Pace's sleeve anyway. Once the nw cngs come online there will be about 130 axess extra. 

[artthouwill]

16 hours ago, Busjack said:

The issue is that bidding on the Wheeling garage was twice cancelled, and while the Open Solicitations page says it is in Planroom, it isn't.

Metzger only said that the buses would be  coordinated with the garage, not that they were coming next year. I also note that ENC has not announced a contract    (click ENC under News).

So in essence Pace is back at square one when it comes to finding a replacement for the Des Plaines facility.  At least there's no hurry or no immediate need for any fleet replacement as there aren't any 6323s eligible for retirement before 2025.  However Pace might need to modify a couple of buses for Dempster Pulse.  I Currently Pace NW has 10 buses wrapped for Pulse with about 5 in use on Pulse Milwaukee.   I think Pulse Dempster needs 7 or 8 for Pulse . If nothing else,  wrapping a few buses in Pulse branding should suffice.

[renardo870]

58 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

So in essence Pace is back at square one when it comes to finding a replacement for the Des Plaines facility.  At least there's no hurry or no immediate need for any fleet replacement as there aren't any 6323s eligible for retirement before 2025.  However Pace might need to modify a couple of buses for Dempster Pulse.  I Currently Pace NW has 10 buses wrapped for Pulse with about 5 in use on Pulse Milwaukee.   I think Pulse Dempster needs 7 or 8 for Pulse . If nothing else,  wrapping a few buses in Pulse branding should suffice.

Will an expanded North Shore garage serve the proposed I-94 and I-294 routes and Pulse 250 Dempster (near term) and Pulse 208 Golf Road and 290 Touhy Ave (long term) routes?

[artthouwill]

23 minutes ago, renardo870 said:

Will an expanded North Shore garage serve the proposed I-94 and I-294 routes and Pulse 250 Dempster (near term) and Pulse 208 Golf Road and 290 Touhy Ave (long term) routes?

I don't know of any plans for expansion concerning the North Shore garage.  

[Busjack]

22 minutes ago, renardo870 said:

Will an expanded North Shore garage serve the proposed I-94 and I-294 routes and Pulse 250 Dempster (near term) and Pulse 208 Golf Road and 290 Touhy Ave (long term) routes?

I-94 (626) already runs out of NS. Given that the Shuttle Bugs are apparently out of business (at least 9 buses: 619, 620, 623, 631-635, 640), there's no need for expansion.

Some 208s and 250s deadhead to and from Evanston, including one with Pulse wrap at about 10:35 a.m., i don't see why NS can't handle some of it.

[Busjack]

Again, I'm not sure about the tea leaves, and it's a month until the budget is released, the discussion of the capital program, starting here, "Pace is not including fixed route bus funding for 2023," basically because Pace will be receiving funded electric buses and money will be allocated to electric garage infrastructure. The 5-year Program has 46 electric buses and 13 coach buses, but nothing said about Wheeling Garage or CNG buses. Are they dead?

[Busjack]

Metzger said at the Oct. Meeting that the Plainfield Garage has its occupancy permit and will be in operation this Monday.

[renardo870]

20 hours ago, Busjack said:

Metzger said at the Oct. Meeting that the Plainfield Garage has its occupancy permit and will be in operation this Monday.

So besides all of the Heritage routes being transferred to Plainfield, are any other routes going to move there by the next pick, like 559?

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, renardo870 said:

So besides all of the Heritage routes being transferred to Plainfield, are any other routes going to move there by the next pick, like 559?

It's certainly possible to move 559 from Fox Valley to Plainfield.  I would think that it's a shorter distance from 111th to Plainfield vs 111th to North Aurora.  Pace hasn't mentioned anything about transferring other routes there yet. Outside of that, the priorities for Plainfield are to expand the I -55 services and possibly use Plainfield for I -294 services in the future, assuming Bridgeview (Southwest) isn't large enough to handle that.