Schaumburg to decide fate of Woodfield trolleys after Pace cuts cost

Schaumburg trustees will decide next week whether the price is now right to renew their use of trolleys to attract visitors to the Woodfield commercial area for another year.

After balking a couple times during the past year about the increasing service cost of the distinctive green trolleys, Schaumburg officials recently persuaded Pace Suburban Bus Service officials to shave $108,000 of their original 2011 asking price of $356,655.

Schaumburg Village Manager Ken Fritz considers the price reduction by Pace to be significant, but said it's up to the village board to make the ultimate decision.

In September, trustees voted to tentatively keep the trolleys running through the end of the Christmas shopping season on Jan. 10. But they made further renewal through Sept. 30, 2011 contingent upon a show of good faith by Pace to keep the trolleys' cost manageable.

For the past year, Schaumburg officials have been facing a dilemma when it comes to the trolleys. While the financial cost was beginning to prove unsustainable, there was strong evidence that the iconic vehicles were a force in bringing out-of-town and out-of-state visitors to the Woodfield area.

The trolleys run among several important locations in the northeast area of the village, including Woodfield, Streets of Woodfield, Roosevelt University and the convention center.

“It provides a service to the retail area there and is another tool to bring in visitors,” Fritz said.

Richard Bascomb, Schaumburg's senior transportation planner, testified in January that he regularly receives calls about the trolleys from out-of-town tour operators. One Milwaukee-based company told him specifically that the trolleys were the only reason it continued to bring visitors to Woodfield instead of the nearer Gurnee Mills.

Another issue that seemed significant last January was the suggestion that the trolley fleet purchased through a federal grant in 2000 could have been down to the last year or two of its serviceable life. That begged the question of whether a long-term commitment to a replacement fleet might be hovering in the future.

But Pace officials have since assured the village that the current fleet can be rehabilitated for another four or five years if both sides remain interested in keeping the program running, Fritz said.