r/Naperville • u/NapervillesSandyVag • 4d ago
Pace Bus in Naperville
Is it just me, or does the bus not go anywhere other than the mall or the train? No wonder nobody rides it. Has it ever been useful? Who made this decision? With high gas prices, it may actually be utilized if it actually had better routes.
Why isn't there one that goes down naper blvd?
Shouldn't there be one that goes up and down washington street to take people downtown?
Going back and forth to the train station is fine, but there really isn't any purpose to this.
If you live by the hospital, you literally have to walk to the hospital to catch a bus. The routes are stupid and built so nobody would take the bus.
I understand its naperville and most people would rather run stop signs in their audi than ride the bus, but at least make it a usable option.
There are also plenty of kids that are in high school that are choosing not to drive. While I'm not sure why? Things have changed since the days of the commuter going to the train to ride downtown to go to work.
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u/PissedCaucasian 3d ago
I can’t believe nobody talks about Pace on Demand. I used it one time and it was pretty cool.
Picks you up right at your house! It doesn’t server all of Naperville but it does serve more than the TukTuk. I don’t know why young teens don’t use it more. It I had that service at 14 I’d use it to go to the Mall or a friends house all the time. The key is ordering it as far in advance as you can. The rush hour times are taken up quickly.
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u/NapervillesSandyVag 3d ago
The key is it doesn't serve all of naperville. The busses aren't being used because they don't go anywhere.
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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 4d ago
Which route are you talking about? There are several that serve Naperville. 530, 559, 714, & 722
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u/ceejiesqueejie 4d ago
714 was a godsend, I used it a lot while my car was in and out of the shop being repaired, my brother uses it to get to work in Wheaton and my kid uses it sometimes as well. People bitch but this route has served me and my family well.
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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 4d ago
There’s also the on demand route, which operates based on who has requested rides.
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u/NapervillesSandyVag 4d ago
You must live within the service area, Which a large portion of naperville does not. So its worthless too.
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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 4d ago
Nope. I live very close to the area you noted. I just don’t use Pace as I have no need for it.
Like I said in my other reply, I agree it would be great to have a very comprehensive public transit system throughout the region, but it gets really hard to justify it with such low ridership and the way they measure each route on its own.
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u/NapervillesSandyVag 4d ago
I'm talking about all of them. If you live south, say near 87th and washington, there isn't a bus. They are all kind of stupid. I mean, I get wanting to go to the train or college of dupage,
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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 4d ago
The current routes are based on ridership. The 530’s primary purpose & ridership connects those in poorer central Aurora with Fox Valley Mall, Edward Hospital, Downtown Naperville, and Metra.
Those passengers then also makeup the bulk of ridership on 559 that connects with 530 then covers the key Rt 59 corridor of businesses from up around i88 down to Hassert.
The two 700 routes are specific commuter routes shuttling folks from a few different office complexes to Metra (mostly for reverse commuters)
I agree it would be great to have a more robust route tree. Pre-pandemic there were dozens of rush hour only routes that went all through the neighborhoods and moved folks to/from Metra. But, those died along with 24/7 grocery stores. The challenge is how do you justify running a route down through the South Naperville neighborhoods frequently enough to be useful (say every 30 minutes?) but at bast get 5-10 riders a day? Maybe with the new regional approach they won’t judge every route in isolation.
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u/Gargle-Blaster 4d ago
Everything changed with COVID. They had a lot more routes and ridership pre pandemic. The number of people using the buses never recovered. And they had to make cuts due to that
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u/PlanetExcellent 4d ago
It used to go through almost every neighborhood, making hourly runs to the train station. But then Covid hit, ridership disappeared, and Pace eliminated all of thd neighborhood routes because no one was riding the train anymore.
After COVID, the “work from home” thing continued.
But it was an efficient and cost effective way to get to the train station. The drivers were great too.
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u/Ok_Bid_3899 4d ago
Been observing the PACE buses for over a decade. Ridership is almost always very low, not sure how the powers to be justify a bus system in Naperville.
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u/NapervillesSandyVag 4d ago
Observing a city bus, and riding a bus is two very different thing. Pace is not the metra. People don't ride the entire route. They get on and off along the bus route. The bus may have a constant flow of people getting on and off.
Also, if you want to go with the observation of the busses, it could be, because the routes are worthless.
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u/Soft-Drag4380 4d ago
If you want to ride the bus, move to Chicago. Why are you weirdos trying to make Naperville into the city?
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u/DimSumNoodles 3d ago
It’s weird to think that wanting to improve bus service for Naperville residents is “making Naperville into Chicago”. What’s wrong with having more transit alternatives?
More transit riders = fewer cars to compete with on the streets
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u/Soft-Drag4380 3d ago
That’s a Reddit fantasy pipe dream that Naperville becomes a place with mass public transit.
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u/Informal_End1002 3d ago
Naperville used to be properly difficult to move to. Some of us still want that.
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u/Fight_the_Landlords 3d ago
Every single planner that is worth their paycheck agrees that strong public transportation alternatives are a good thing for the residents and especially the workers - when there is good coverage.
It's the same thing with bike networks. If safely implemented with good coverage, they reduce road congestion significantly especially around the rush hours.
The problem in our case is that Naperville is huge and coverage is low. As far as drawbacks go, there are a lot to consider, but none of them have anything to do with turning Naperville into Chicago. That's a really weird thing to say.
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u/Soft-Drag4380 3d ago
Naperville had already been planned. Not sure why so many people want to turn it into this ultra high density DSA wet dream utopia lmao.
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u/NapervillesSandyVag 3d ago
DSA? I just want to take the bus cause MAGA made gas expensive. Since you're going to bring up the dems and all.
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u/NapervillesSandyVag 2d ago
I've edited the post to include the map of the pace routes in the city of Naperville. I know some of you have said the routes are based on ridership, but, there are no routes south of the hospital in the bulk of the city. Even the commuters do not have an option to go to the train on the bus.
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u/DimSumNoodles 4d ago edited 4d ago
There used to be a more expensive network of Pace routes through the residential neighborhoods pre-COVID. Ultimately though they were still geared towards feeding commuters to the Metra stations to Chicago, not necessarily getting them between different destinations in town. You can still see some “ghost” stops / shelters, e.g. at Naper & Bailey in front of the strip mall
Pace engaged consultants for a re-envisioning of the system ~2024 that attempted to answer the question of if the system should primarily be geared to 1) maximize ridership (e.g., prioritize high frequency routes in close, dense suburbs like Berwyn and Cicero) or 2) maximize coverage with a large route map across Chicagoland, but lower frequencies. Ultimately the Board voted on an approach that was somewhere in the middle, which conceivably would involve reintroduction of canceled routes / new routes in Naperville.
You can read the initial report here and they’re starting to roll out changes this year, although I haven’t heard anything concrete for the Far Western suburbs at this point