St. Charles eases back on participation in Ride in Kane program

A second sign of a what is expected to be a grim budget presentation by the city of St. Charles for the coming fiscal year popped up this week.

The Ride in Kane program's first anniversary is Sunday. St. Charles will not celebrate, however, discontinuing its participation in the program at a provider level as it looks for cost-cutting measures. The city's Planning and Development Committee voted this week to cut back on the program, and the city council could affirm that decision next week. The city recently notified its major unions that layoffs might also be on the way.

Ride in Kane provides transportation service for senior citizens, disabled people and low-income residents of Kane County. Pace Suburban Bus manages a central call center for the county that dispatches taxis, buses and other curb-to-curb transportation. Currently, St. Charles helps fuel the program in two ways. It provides two Pace-provided, but city-maintained buses for transportation on a Monday through Friday basis. In addition, the city kicks in funding for the overall program.

The city's contract with Pace to be a provider expired Jan. 27. The city council is expected to retroactively extend that agreement to Tuesday. Starting Wednesday the city will no longer provide the two buses. After a year of data, the service proved to more costly to the city than it had expected. Cutting the two buses, but keeping the overall sponsorship of the program in place is expected to save the city about $30,000. The city expects Pace will continue to provide - and now maintain - the two buses that were being used. It's unclear what the impact of that change is on the overall cost of the program to the municipalities that participate, or the cost to the riders themselves.

Several aldermen said this week they are aware of several people who use the program, dating back to its earlier manifestation as Dial-A-Ride. Even with the expired contract with Pace currently in place, the aldermen reported the service still seems to be running smoothly.