RTA to allow Pace buses to ride shoulders on I-55

Saying it wants to make public transportation an attractive alternative to being stuck in traffic, the Regional Transportation Authority is giving the green light for rush-hour Pace buses to run on the shoulder of the Stevenson Expressway.

Executive Director Joseph Costello called the pilot program a “low-cost, quick-to-implement solution” to speeding Pace buses through congested traffic.

The two-year tryout, scheduled to begin in November, will affect Pace’s 755 and 855 routes, running between Bolingbrook and Chicago, which will be permitted to use the shoulder in morning and evening rush hours over six- and eight-mile stretches of I-55 between I-355 and Central Avenue in Chicago and another one-mile stretch near Pulaski Road.

The program could be expanded to other expressways where the shoulders can accommodate buses, said Leanne Redden, senior deputy executive director of planning & regional programs.

The pilot program will benefit from an Illinois Department of Transportation resurfacing project set to begin on the Stevenson in March. Rumble strips will be moved over, allowing bus wheels to straddle them, and signs and lane markings will be added.

Similar programs have been adopted in Kansas City and Minneapolis, where they have considerable experience clearing snow from road shoulders. Redden said the two-year period was intended to test it out in all seasons and weather conditions.

It will also be expressly for Pace buses, not other high-occupancy vehicles or carpools. “It’s just for a handful of buses in the a.m. peak and a handful of buses in the p.m. peak. That is it,” Redden said. “So it’s going to require some enforcement.”

It’s also going to require some minor amendments to the Illinois Vehicle Code, expected before November.

Yet, if a success, it could conceivably cut fuel costs and, Redden said, make it “so the transit option becomes even more attractive” to those stuck in traffic on other expressways, too.

“We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves just yet,” Redden said. “But ultimately that would be a wonderful scenario.”