Schaumburg trolleys win new lease of life

Schaumburg's iconic green trolleys will continue to attract out-of-town visitors to the Woodfield area through at least the summer of 2011.

Village trustees made that decision Tuesday night after Pace Suburban Bus Service offered to cut $108,000 from its original asking price to bring it to $253,159 for the year ahead.

Schaumburg officials said they faced a real dilemma over the trolleys' future, given their significantly rising cost, but they have proven their ability to draw shoppers to the village from well outside the Chicago area.

The trolleys ferry visitors between several important destinations in the northeast corner of the village, including Woodfield, Streets of Woodfield, IKEA, Roosevelt University and the convention center.

“That trolley is a boon to the business community around Woodfield,” Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson said Tuesday. “It helps the hotels, it helps Woodfield and Streets of Woodfield and it helps the convention center. You can say it costs this many dollars, but how do you measure its effect on retail sales?”

Richard Bascomb, Schaumburg's senior transportation planner, told the board he regularly receives calls about the trolleys from out-of-town tour operators. A Milwaukee-based company even told him that the trolleys are the only reason it continues to bring visitors to Woodfield instead of Gurnee Mills.

Nevertheless, the trolleys' rising costs have made their continued use a delicate balancing act for village officials.

Though Sept. 30 is the usual end date for each annual contract, trustees last September agreed to keep the trolleys running only through the end of the Christmas shopping season on Jan. 10 unless Pace demonstrated a good faith effort to reduce the cost.

Another issue that seemed pressing earlier this year was the suggestion that the current trolley fleet purchased through a federal grant in 2000 might be down to its last year or two of serviceable life. Officials wondered whether a long-term commitment to a replacement fleet might be hovering in the near future.

But Pace officials have assured the village since then that the current fleet can be rehabilitated for another four or five years if both sides remain interested in keeping the program going.