It wasn’t just Pace’s decision to drop suburban bus service to the Sears and Ameritech office campuses in Hoffman Estates that sparked the ire of the firms’ executives Thursday.
What made it worse, they said, was they had not been notified in advance by Pace of the possibility of service cuts to the Metra commuter stations in Barrington and Bartlett.
The cuts were announced Wednesday when the Pace board of directors approved a 1994 operating budget that dropped 14 routes and cut service on 15 other bus lines in communities throughout suburban Chicago, including Arlington Heights, Aurora, Crystal Lake, Joliet, Naperville, Schaumburg and Waukegan.
But a Pace official said Thursday the cuts should not have come as a complete surprise, since they were listed among low-ridership routes at risk of elimination in the agency’s budget plan for next year.
The budget still needs final approval from the Regional Transportation Authority, which has scheduled Dec. 10 hearings to consider next year’s budgets for Pace, Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority.
If the RTA approves Pace’s budget plan, the route and service cuts would be phased in starting in January, with all changes in place by the end of March.
Across the six-county metropolitan area, Pace routes in the northwest suburbs were among the hardest hit, with seven routes eliminated and two given reduced service.
And among the northwest suburban routes cut, perhaps the highest profile were those running to Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Ameritech Services, companies touting efforts to get more employees to give up driving alone to work.
At the Prairie Stone headquarters of the Sears Merchandise Group, where 30 percent of the company’s 5,000 employees commute using public transportation or ridesharing, news of the Pace cuts was not welcome.
“It’s going to leave me without transportation, because I don’t have a driver’s license,” said Gail Novak, a resident of Elmhurst who is a 25-year employee of Sears. “I’ll have to find an alternative, either a van pool or drive.”
Officials at both Sears and Ameritech said they would seek restoration of the feeder services. The routes, No. 729 to Ameritech from the Barrington Metra station, and Nos. 731 and 732 to Sears from the Bartlett amd Barrington train stops, respectively, are partially subsidized by the companies.
C.W. “Bill” Rule, executive director of the Prairie Stone Transportation Management Association, which supervises Sears commuting, said the Pace board’s decision came as “a total out-of-the-blue surprise.”
Although discussions took place last spring between Pace and Sears over whether Sears would continue subsidizing the Barrington route, “nothing was discussed recently” about cutting the service, Rule said.
“There’s increased patronage on both lines,” he said, adding that it carries about 60 Prairie Stone riders a day.
“We will definitely make our case known,” he said. “This is a growing service, and we anticipate it will continue to grow, particularly as business here expands.”
Terrance Brannon, deputy executive director of planning for Pace, said Thursday that both routes could continue to operate next year if Sears and Ameritech agreed to pay the net cost of running the lines.
“If they continue to cover the costs, they’ll continue,” he said. “But it’s our understanding they have no intention to continue the subsidies.”
Sears employee Ann Ullegue, of Arlington Heights, said the company should do something to save the bus routes, since it initiated the move from downtown Chicago to Hoffman Estates.
Rule apologized to bus riders in the lobby of the Prairie Stone transportation center Thursday afternoon as they left work, and he promised to urge Pace officials to restore the cuts.
In an interview earlier, Rule questioned Pace’s action in light of the federal Clean Air Act, which holds employers responsible for getting employees out of cars and onto public transportation.
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“It’s essential you have this kind of service,” he said.
William Goodwin, director of Clean Air Compliance for Ameritech, said he also was struck off-guard by Pace’s action. He said he had spoken with the company’s Pace sales representative on Wednesday and heard nothing about service cuts.
“We had some discussion about the route,” Goodwin said. “They had some concern about the number of riders (10), but there was no talk of dropping the line.”
The $96.9 million Pace budget also calls for service cuts to people with disabilities and reduced support for senior citizen transit. Pace officials said they were forced to cut because the RTA alloted Pace $5.9 million less that what it sought for fiscal 1994.
Other routes to be eliminated include No. 805 between Crystal Lake in McHenry County and Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee-Carpentersville.
Eliminating the route will pose a problem for 35-year-old Wayne Sanders of Algonquin, who uses a wheelchair.
“I’ll be at home a lot more,” he said as he sat at a mall bus stop. “I won’t be able to come here to shop anymore.”
Helene Pepping, 80, of McHenry, also was chagrined to learn the news.
She makes at least one trip to the mall each week, after switching between the McHenry and Crystal Lake routes.
“I don’t know how I’ll get out here now,” she said.
Meanwhile, officials at the Robin campus of Roosevelt University in Arlington Heights were also disappointed and were trying to assess the damage to students who use the No. 690 line between the Arlington Heights Metra station and the campus at 2121 S. Goebbert Rd.
Though the entire route, which starts in Buffalo Grove, won’t be eliminated, north-south service to and from the campus will end.
“While the number of students using this route is small, they were dependent on its existence,” a school spokeswoman said.
“In an effort to reduce the number of students driving to campus, Roosevelt had planned to ask Pace to extend service on Route 690 through the evening hours, when most students take classes,” she said.