Posted on 09/27/2017 6:15:19 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
CHICAGO — Sixteen miles of new "flex lanes" will allow PACE buses to breeze past traffic along I-90 going west from O'Hare Airport, suburban transportation officials announced this week.
The lanes will carry six new bus lines all along the Jane Addams Tollway, half of them linking up with the Rosemont Blue Line station to give passengers direct access to the city.
Ratcheting up bus service was the last piece of a $2.5 billion effort to widen the tollway between O'Hare and suburban Elgin, officials said. Construction wrapped up last December.
The extra lane will stay clear most of the time, open only to emergency responders, according to Dan Rozek, a spokesman for the Illinois Tollway. But any time traffic dips below 35 mph — as measured by an intricate network of cameras and sensors — PACE buses will hop over and bypass the gridlock.
PACE saw eye-popping results after it rolled out similar program along the Stevenson Expy. going into Downtown in 2012, according to spokeswoman Maggie Daly Skogsbakken.
The transit agency saw a nearly five-fold spike in ridership along the Stevenson after authorities marked off a lane for buses, Skogsbakken said. And passengers get picked up on time for 92 percent of their trips, up from 68 percent before 2012.
PACE ridership has already jumped 27 percent along the I-90 corridor since its six new routes came online late last year, Skogsbakken said.
"We're already seeing our biggest expansion ever along that route, and we think it's going to be an even better option as soon as we're able to bypass all that traffic," she said.
The new routes are being populated with new buses, complete with free WiFi, USB outlets and leather seats, Skogsbakken added.
Last year, state transportation workers broke ground on a multi-year project to widen the Kennedy Expy. between Harlem and Cumberland avenues, although officials haven't announced dedicated bus lanes for the route.
Nonetheless, transportation planners are scrambling to get ahead of a surge of business openings they expect to hit the Northwest Side and nearby suburbs in the coming decades, Skogsbakken said.
"The I-90 corridor is set by 2040 to have as many employment opportunities as the [city]'s central business district, but we haven't had enough bus routes to accommodate all that development going on," Skogsbakken said. "With improved frequency, we think this is going to be a legitimate competitor to private automobiles and trains."
It’s well worth it to drive way around ChIraq at most times of most days.
Metra is also upgrading service with refurbished passenger cars, adding "free" WiFi (we pay for it in our already exhorbitant ticket prices) new more ergonomic friendly seats and USB charging outlets.
As a Metra rider of almost 30 years back and forth to Chicago, it's about damn' time. Good for PACE btw. I stepped inside one of the new buses and they look quite nice. Seriously nice.
You've experienced our traffic have you? Yep, it's horrible which is why I train it into the city 3x a week and don't drive.
Public transportation. No, thanks. Just another reason not to live in metro areas. I’ll take a nice quiet drive through the country in my own vehicle, with my own germs, over that any day.
I used to commute daily from the lakefront all the way out to the Sears HQ in Hoffman Estates. Took a bus from the Blue line out on I-90. It was often creeping along for a good part of th drive - and that was 20 years ago! Can’t imagine how slow it is now.
Here in the Denver metro area, at great expense and inconvenience, the city put in car pool lanes with the promise that it would be good for the environment — less pollution.
Well, a few years into it, the City realized that there was money to be made and had so they opened the car pool lanes to paying commuters. No problem. Then, very recently they upped the HOV limit from 2 to 3 and forced everyone to rent a transponder even if the commuter complies with the 3 person limit. Gone are the free car pool lanes.
My guess is that they will make more money off of the few people who are okay with paying for something that used to be free. But like any tax, it will discourage use and I predict a shortfall and fewer people using the car pool lane than before.
“You’ve experienced our traffic have you? Yep, it’s horrible which is why I train it into the city 3x a week and don’t drive. “
I commuted by train 1 hour each way from the exurbs to the Chicago loop for 17 freaking years. For part of the commute the tracks paralleled very closely the Kennedy Expressway which leads to downtown Chicago. Always pitied the poor bastards on the expressway. Endless jams and construction. Illinois is corrupt as it gets and road work contracts are always given to “insiders” who milk the system to the hilt. Shoddy, ultra slow work with inferior materials, cost and completion date overruns etc. Consequently, there is pretty much perpetual construction. I have zero faith in any new road expansion/improvement projects in this wretched state.
I-90 has added a lane to each side which makes I-90 not bad anymore. The new bus service out to Randall Road in Elgin can make a round trip (40 miles each way) to Chicago via the Blue line $4.50 per day. A steal compared to METRA. You also skip $3.00 of I-90 tolls. (Thanks subsidies!)
I suspect that transponder is like the EZ-Pass Flex of northern Virginia, in that it has a switch that will allow you to ride in the HOT lane for free if you have 3 or more people in the car.
It does. That is its function. However, a transponder wasn’t necessary to ride free before.
Simply put: the city makes it easy to access the carpool lane by paying and difficult to use it for free.
Details...
Apparently, the city can’t use the bar code label that all cars are required to have now for free access. The bar code label is read while whizzing past the reader and that is how a driver is charged while using the carpool lane irrespective of how many people are in the car. No transponder necessary. My son does this and he is always driving solo.
The only way to be able to ride in the car pool lane for free is to rent a transponder. And you have to rent one for each car. Weird and seems backwards. Free should be easier, but it isn’t.
#5 You can always wear your bus pants like Sheldon Cooper when taking the bus.
Good one.
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