When consultants Walker & Associates presented the proposal for the revamp of the entire Pace bus route network to the suburban bus transit agency’s board of directors on April 15, director Thomas Marcucci, who represents DuPage County, was upfront with his dismay.
“I gotta get back to DuPage County and say – 80 percent of our brown dots (that show reduced access to jobs) are in our county, which is one of the counties that helped raise the most funds (in RTA sales tax revenue), and how am I going to explain that?” he asked. “The new (state funding) bill, which is producing funds, and our funding is going to go up, but oops not you.”
The route restructuring plan assumes that Pace would get a 50 percent increase in funding. On March 19, 2025, the board directed Walker to create a plan where 60 to 70 percent of the new funding would go toward expanding service to the parts of the region that currently don’t have any, and 30 to 40 percent would go toward adding or increasing service on major corridors that are expected to generate the most ridership. Pace directors who represent collar counties argued that the current network doesn’t service their constituents’ needs…