Pace to offer rapid transit bus combo

Bus rapid transit will have to make room for a new transit option at Pace - arterial rapid transit.

Pace officials outlined plans for six routes, with three expected to be up and running in 2013, at a Wednesday meeting.

While the bus rapid transit concept involves buses traveling along expressway right-of-way with limited stops - arterial rapid transit will put vehicles on arterial roads in the suburbs, planners explained.

The buses will use transponders to control traffic lights, prolonging green lights and shortening red lights when drivers are running late to shorten travel times.

The three routes expected to be ready in four years are: an Oak Brook corridor bus, which could use I-290 or 22nd Street to travel from west Cook to DuPage; a Milwaukee Avenue bus, which would travel between Niles and the Jefferson Park transit center; and a Dempster Street bus, which would run through Evanston, Skokie, Morton Grove, and Des Plaines, ending near O'Hare International Airport.

Pace Deputy Executive Director for Strategic Services Michael Bolton said Milwaukee and Dempster were picked because of significant ridership trends.

Pace hopes to obtain federal funding for the project. Cost estimates weren't available.

Other routes for arterial rapid transit are Harlem Street, 95th Street and Halsted Avenue. It will take about 10 years for all six to be ready, mainly because of changes that will be required at traffic lights. Arterial rapid transit buses will be painted or marked differently from regular Pace buses.

Pace is also planning to introduce a Bus Rapid Transit route running along I-55 between the southwest suburbs and Chicago next year.

Wednesday's meeting was the first held in the new Pace headquarters, just east of the old building on Algonquin Road in Arlington Heights. The two-story, 65,000-square-foot building cost $14.2 million with 56 percent of funding coming from the Federal Transit Administration, 25 percent from the Regional Transportation Authority and 19 percent from Pace.