Carpentersville gets $75k grant for Pace study
Carpentersville has beaten out nine communities to snag a $75,000 community planning grant from the Regional Transportation Authority.
The grant allows Carpentersville to initiate a study to see whether there is demand to change the existing Pace bus routes that run through the village, Assistant Village Manager Steven Jones said.
Authorities envision an existing route linking east-side employees to their jobs along Maple Avenue, Commerce Parkway and within Old Town to OTTO Engineering. Officials estimate that the village has more than 6,000 homes east of the river, and that those residents comprise the bulk of that area's workforce.
Right now, Pace operates two routes through Carpentersville that go from north to south — the No. 543 and the No. 803.
“What we're trying to do is do a ridership/market study to see whether there is some justification to alter or enhance the current Pace bus routing in Carpentersville,” Jones said. “We just need to know what the market is and then we'll come up with alternatives.”
The process involves Pace working with a yet-to-be named consultant who will survey businesses and some of the employees in Carpentersville, gather data and put all of the information into a study.
The other communities in contention for the grant were Lake Villa, Fox Lake, Mount Prospect, Round Lake, Evanston, Kenilworth, Cicero, Olympia Fields and LaGrange.
Carpentersville is responsible for funding the study's remaining $15,000, and the village board is due to take a vote on whether to do so on Jan. 3.
The study would move forward in the spring.