advertisement

Barrington to share cost of senior bus

Barrington trustees Monday voted to join with five other villages and two townships in sharing the local cost of the Pace Dial-A-Ride service for senior and handicapped riders which the entire Barrington area has been benefiting from for years.

For the past five years, the local share of the approximately $100,000-per-year service has been paid for exclusively by the village of Lake Barrington, Barrington and Cuba townships, and riders themselves from throughout the Barrington area.

But before it stopped its own funding of the program five years ago, the village of Barrington was the principal local partner of Pace for the service.

Lake Barrington kept funding the program because it recognized it had high ridership from the gated senior community of Lake Barrington Shores, said Joyce Palmquist, executive director of the Barrington Area Council on Aging (BACOA).

With no other villages contributing for years, however, Lake Barrington gave an ultimatum that more cost-sharing based on ridership be done, and so a new method of measuring local ridership was created, Palmquist said.

It was found that both Barrington and Lake Barrington generated just over 1,000 rides each in a year, and so will each pay $6,250 for 2014.

Lake Barrington's costs are coming down only slightly — from $6,750 last year — from the new sharing arrangement.

Cook and Lake counties are contributing a total of $45,000 to the program. The remainder — the local share — will be borne 60 percent by the two townships and 40 percent by the six villages based on ridership, Palmquist said.

Barrington Hills will pay $3,750, South Barrington $750, and both North Barrington and Tower Lakes $250 each.

Deer Park was found to have no ridership as the village receives such services largely from Ela Township.

The cost per ride for the riders themselves is also going up from $1 to $2 this year.

The service is provided by a lift-equipped, 15-passenger van for which arrangements must be made 24 hours in advance, Palmquist said. Though much of the Barrington area is included, the service area is very specific and doesn't go south of the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, for instance.

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.