2020 Pace Budget

[Pace831]

Pace is proposing another series of cuts to low-performing routes:

• Route 186 East Lisle Evening Service
• Route 187 West Lisle Evening Service
• Route 509 Joliet-Fairmont (Saturday service discontinued only)
• Route 540 Farnsworth Avenue
• Route 559 Illinois Route 59 (Saturday service discontinued only)
• Route 570 Fox Lake-CLC (Saturday service discontinued only)
• Route 669 Western Springs - Indian Head Park
• Route 806 Crystal Lake-Fox Lake

The full budget document will be available here after October 16.

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

I never knew about routes 186 and 187.

[Pace831]

2 minutes ago, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

I never knew about routes 186 and 187.

They are demand-based evening flex routes that serve areas covered by multiple BNSF feeders during rush hour (although 186 only covers 825 since 824 was cut). Naperville has an equivalent service with routes 182-185.

[NewFlyerMCI]

4 hours ago, Pace831 said:

Pace is proposing another series of cuts to low-performing routes:

• Route 186 East Lisle Evening Service
• Route 187 West Lisle Evening Service
• Route 509 Joliet-Fairmont (Saturday service discontinued only)
• Route 540 Farnsworth Avenue
• Route 559 Illinois Route 59 (Saturday service discontinued only)
• Route 570 Fox Lake-CLC (Saturday service discontinued only)
• Route 669 Western Springs - Indian Head Park
• Route 806 Crystal Lake-Fox Lake

The full budget document will be available here after October 16.

I'm surprised the other two 800s Crystal Lake/McHenry/Woodstock routes aren't here either

[Pace831]

14 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

I'm surprised the other two 800s Crystal Lake/McHenry/Woodstock routes aren't here either

806 has the lowest ridership of the three, and it is roughly twice as long as 807 so it costs more to operate. 808 probably has enough riders to hang in there for at least a few more years. It wouldn't surprise me if 807 is on next year's list, as Pace seems to avoid making too drastic of a cut at one time. On that point, the 2019 budget only cut Saturday service on 540, and they waited until 2020 to cut the rest of it.

[andrethebusman]

Slowly the outer ring service goes away.  Nobody wants to admit the collar counties will never have bus usage to speak of. Even the train feeders are failing and could be easily replaced with bigger parking lots.

[RJL6000]

12 hours ago, andrethebusman said:

Slowly the outer ring service goes away.  Nobody wants to admit the collar counties will never have bus usage to speak of. Even the train feeders are failing and could be easily replaced with bigger parking lots.

It might also be that that part of the area has recently been seeing population declines. After all, if fewer people are living there now than about 10 years ago, then there is less justification for transit service of any kind.

[Pace831]

3 hours ago, RJL6000 said:

It might also be that that part of the area has recently been seeing population declines. After all, if fewer people are living there now than about 10 years ago, then there is less justification for transit service of any kind.

Bus ridership in general is down due to a good economy and availability of rideshare (although I’m not sure how much the latter is applicable in the far suburbs). I looked at population statistics for all of these areas and they have all had either an insignificant loss or an increase (with the possible exception of 509).

[MetroShadow]

As long as gas prices hover around $3, folks will continue to drive and TNCs will continue to thrive. 
 

another round of regionwide cuts - and it sucks to see the 540 bite the dust (I was personally rooting for it)

[andrethebusman]

Aurora started downhill when the pulse point was moved to the roundhouse and headway went to 35 minutes. Small town systems recognize you need memory schedules. 35 is not a memory schedule. The outer cities were much better run before PACE.

[Pace831]

I checked out the 5:50 PM trip of 669. It had nine riders including myself, which was more than I expected. However, the equipment has been downgraded from a paratransit to a community vehicle.

[RJL6000]

On 10/4/2019 at 8:15 PM, MetroShadow said:

As long as gas prices hover around $3, folks will continue to drive and TNCs will continue to thrive. 
 

another round of regionwide cuts - and it sucks to see the 540 bite the dust (I was personally rooting for it)

The opposite of that first sentence would have occurred had the gas prices rose to what is typically charged in European countries (after currency conversion), in which case the transportation availability would have collapsed - far fewer cars, no public transit whatsoever and a massive population drop.

With that said, the bus ridership in Crystal Lake currently doesn't justify anything more than a reservation-based On-Demand service similar to what is used in some of the other communities such as the Arlington Heights-Rolling Meadows area.

[rotjohns]

With the 824 already cut and the 186-187 being cut, those routes in Bolingbrook must be heavily invested in the I-55 routes.  Passengers realized how easy it was to get downtown using those and don't really take the feeders anymore.  If Bolingbrook expands the current parking lots or comes up with others, look out.  

559 needs to go period, I see no real reason to keep it.  I see it daily and see at the most 2-3 riders.

This will probably mean the end of at least a couple of 2600s unless any are needed for West.  

[Pace831]

5 hours ago, rotjohns said:

With the 824 already cut and the 186-187 being cut, those routes in Bolingbrook must be heavily invested in the I-55 routes.  Passengers realized how easy it was to get downtown using those and don't really take the feeders anymore.  If Bolingbrook expands the current parking lots or comes up with others, look out.  

You're correct that the I-55 expansion caused the ridership decline on 824/825. I have to wonder whether any of 825's remaining riders are going downtown at all.

5 hours ago, rotjohns said:

559 needs to go period, I see no real reason to keep it.  I see it daily and see at the most 2-3 riders.

That has been my observation as well, even during rush hour. As I said with regard to 540, they would probably not cut all of it at once, but may eliminate the rest next year if warranted. Another possible consideration is that 559 was billed as the first step in some of Pace's longer-term plans, which may make them more reluctant to get rid of it entirely.

5 hours ago, rotjohns said:

This will probably mean the end of at least a couple of 2600s unless any are needed for West.  

I'm not sure how you figure that, as the 540 is the only cut that could be used to retire a 2600 (and only one, assuming the school trips are kept). The rest of the cuts are either at off-peak times or routes run by smaller vehicles.

[BusHunter]

You cant help but wonder with these cuts are the resources shifting from the outlying routes to Express and Pulse services. The outlying  routes do have the lower ridership. Theres only so much budget money  to pass around and Pace is growing with alot of new services. Something has to drop. 

I wonder if a few buses shift around here and there, could more nabis be in the exit line. At least with the new flyers coming the end is near for the nabis anyway. 

CTA on the other hand doesnt have a replacement plan for its 18 year old novas. First time I've seen them with old buses and getting older. They may eventually rival the 300s which did run an unbelievable 30 years, (#301) but a few ran into their early 20s. 

This proterra delay is not helping matters. Already 2 months behind schedule on delivery. CTA should have just went with some eldorkos. They seem to be a nice small bus. Pace is not complaining. Besides the #88 and #85 and #81w dont need full size buses. Neither do the midway routes west of midway. 

[NewFlyerMCI]

3 hours ago, BusHunter said:

This proterra delay is not helping matters. Already 2 months behind schedule on delivery. CTA should have just went with some eldorkos. They seem to be a nice small bus. Pace is not complaining. Besides the #88 and #85 and #81w dont need full size buses. Neither do the midway routes west of midway. 

This is really the baffling one for me. CTA knows that 74th, NP, FG & 103rd could use some 35 ft buses. 

 

3 hours ago, BusHunter said:

You cant help but wonder with these cuts are the resources shifting from the outlying routes to Express and Pulse services. The outlying  routes do have the lower ridership. Theres only so much budget money  to pass around and Pace is growing with alot of new services. Something has to drop. 

This also makes me wonder, do you know how successful have the I-90 services been? Or where I could find out?

[Pace831]

14 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Or where I could find out?

RTAMS.org has the total ridership numbers.

[NewFlyerMCI]

5 minutes ago, Pace831 said:

RTAMS.org has the total ridership numbers.

For this type of service, what would be an acceptable ridership threshold?

[Pace831]

15 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

For this type of service, what would be an acceptable ridership threshold?

Operating cost per passenger mile is the usual metric. This would require some guessing on our part since Pace doesn't usually make all the data available. For example, dividing the numbers in the RTAMS table by the number of trips gives you the average number of passengers per trip, which should roughly correlate with the route's success. That number is about 6 for 603 and 605, but less than 1 for 607. Local routes 604 and 608 have about 2. Those numbers seem rather disappointing.

[andrethebusman]

The issue with 74th is that all west of Midway routes are interlined with east of Midway routes. Bus comes off 55, makes trip on 55N, goes back to 55. Next 55N might be off 63 or 59. So you are stuck running 40 footers out there. FG has same problem, endless interlining caused by trying to keep service hours down.

[chicagocubs6323]

On 10/10/2019 at 3:39 PM, andrethebusman said:

The issue with 74th is that all west of Midway routes are interlined with east of Midway routes. Bus comes off 55, makes trip on 55N, goes back to 55. Next 55N might be off 63 or 59. So you are stuck running 40 footers out there. FG has same problem, endless interlining caused by trying to keep service hours down.

I thought 62H and 55N/55A were all one route 

[NewFlyerMCI]

2 hours ago, chicagocubs6323 said:

I thought 62H and 55N/55A were all one route 

I had thought it three separate routes being the:

1) 62H

2) 55A/N

3) 63W/165 

but I'm happy to be wrong

[MetroShadow]

On 10/10/2019 at 12:11 PM, Pace831 said:

Operating cost per passenger mile is the usual metric. This would require some guessing on our part since Pace doesn't usually make all the data available. For example, dividing the numbers in the RTAMS table by the number of trips gives you the average number of passengers per trip, which should roughly correlate with the route's success. That number is about 6 for 603 and 605, but less than 1 for 607. Local routes 604 and 608 have about 2. Those numbers seem rather disappointing.

When I wrote the standards back in 2015-16, the key metrics are/were.

- productivity: average ridership (weekday/sat/sun) Or per trip (premium)

- cost per rider

- Recovery ratio

- cost per vehicle mile (it takes from LACMTA’s ratio of service miles. Or so I had thought)

of course, other factors including service area AND classification matter (exurban areas are designed to be measured against each other; core lines measured against themselves, etc)

[Pace831]

I was the only passenger on the last northbound 806 from Crystal Lake today. The driver hadn’t heard about the route’s proposed elimination but he wasn’t surprised by it. He said the most passengers he ever had was 5 and that 0-2 was typical. The most popular boarding location in the afternoon is Centegra Hospital in McHenry. I mentioned that everyone affected could use Dial-a-Ride, and the driver said they might not want to because it’s often late. However, he then noted that the fixed route isn’t necessarily more reliable, and that he was an hour late yesterday due to road construction. I got off at Edgewood Road and remarked that he probably didn’t stop there often. His response was “No, there used to be someone who got off somewhere around here”.

Long story short, there probably won’t be any big fuss when 806 goes away.

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

Photo of the budget info that I saw in 6783 last weekend.