A bus line from Hanover Park to Wheaton?

With most in agreement that suburban public transit is inadequate at best, officials are looking into the possibility of adding a north-south bus line connecting six West suburban towns.

Hanover Park officials Thursday approved a $150,000 study with Chicago-based Land Vision Inc. that would look into the feasibility of a 9-mile route starting at Hanover Park's Metra station on the north and ending at the DuPage County Government Complex in Wheaton on the south. In between, it would run along County Farm Road through Bloomingdale, Carol Stream, Roselle and Winfield.

“With the Metra station and the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway coming into Hanover Park, this is an opportunity to enhance our transit system,” Hanover Park Mayor Rod Craig said.

Aside from the train, the only public transit the village can speak of is a single bus route that travels from Elgin east to Woodfield Shopping Center on weekday mornings and back west in the afternoons. Craig said discussions are in place to increase service so that both directions run simultaneously all day.

Serving as lead agency on the study, Hanover Park was awarded a $150,000 grant from the Regional Transportation Authority and had to match 20 percent, or $30,000.

The contract calls for Land Vision to examine current transit service in the area and prepare recommendations for “politically and financially supportable” transit service along the County Farm Road corridor. It will work with a steering committee made up of representatives from the six affected suburbs, Pace, Metra and DuPage County.

The consultants plan on holding three public forums throughout the study phase, which will begin next month and continue through early summer 2011. They also plan on distributing a survey asking residents, larger employers and community leaders about needed and desired types of transit, anticipated frequency of use, amenities, connections with other transit, origin and destination points, hours, fares and payment methods.

The contract also noted that the study would pay attention to typical indicators of transit use, including areas with high concentrations of youth and elderly; households with one or fewer automobiles; and lower-income households.