PACE vs Pace: Sleeper cars and cops on Route 53
Sometimes you just can't fit everything into one story.
And that's why I want to shoehorn some dangling issues from today's story about Pace paratransit into this column.
To recap, Pace took over providing paratransit for Chicago residents from the CTA in July 2006. Paratransit is a ride service for people with disabilities who can't use fixed routes.
The idea was to offer a regional program for both suburbanites and Chicagoans that would be cost-effective and efficient.
But as of March 2009, agency officials are staring at a $24 million paratransit shortfall and Pace's boss, the Regional Transportation Authority, is auditing it following a boatload of complaints from Chicago riders. Pace officials say they're offering a much better service compared to the CTA.
Here's two items of interest that didn't make the article.
• Last spring, Pace Chairman Richard Kwasneski convened a blue ribbon committee of paratransit riders and advocates to assess the agency's paratransit service and offer ideas for improvements at a cost of $80,000. The group came up with numerous suggestions such as offering training for staff on disability issues, resolving complaints quickly, evaluating and maintaining vehicles and providing information in Braille.
So what's happened with the committee's recommendations issued four months ago?
So far, the Pace board has taken official action on one item - creating two separate committees of Chicagoans and suburbanites to advise officials on disability issues.
• Pace versus PACE.
Pace used to have just one group of people counseling it on disability issues. Then, the agency disbanded the Pace ADA advisory committee last year after creating city/suburban committees.
The original group isn't going quietly. Members still are meeting under the name, Paratransit Advocates Committed to Equality, aka - PACE.
One recent e-mail from PACE (the paratransit advocates) blasted Pace (the bus service), saying "Pace has let paratransit riders down in Chicagoland and something needs to be done about it."
The relationship between former allies has disintegrated to the point where transit agency staff she worked closely with before won't return calls, said Des Plaines resident Sharon Lamp, who headed up the original advisory committee.
Pace (the bus service) had little comment except to say it was concerned about the rift. "We're human beings, they're human beings," Deputy Executive Director of Revenue Services Melinda Metzger said.
Reader mail
John Shaw of Lake Zurich wants to know what gives with Cook County Sheriff's Police patrolling Route 53? "They are also running radar at the Dundee Road overpass day and night," Shaw e-mailed. "Why is the county patrolling a state road? It makes me feel like they have too many officers."
Police spokeswoman Penny Mateck responds that the agency has "jurisdiction and the authority to conduct traffic enforcement and write traffic tickets across the county wherever we see violations taking place, including along state roads and within the boundaries of Chicago or suburban municipalities.
"Also, because a stretch of unincorporated Cook County is located along both sides of Route 53 near Rand Road and is part of a larger beat for that area, our officers frequent the area during their patrols," Mateck said.
Incoming
• Zzzzzz. Amtrak is bringing back sleeper cars between Chicago and Boston starting April 2 on the Lake Shore Limited route. For info, check out Amtrak.com or call (800) USA-RAIL.
• The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is offering a reprieve on expensive $50 fines for toll violations until June 30. For info, call (800) UCI-PASS or visit illinoistollway.com.
• If you happen to be downtown, there's a free show of intriguing O'Hare International Airport photographs at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 S. Michigan Ave. It includes black and white shots of O'Hare from the 1960s and portraits of the airport as a prairie landscape.