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Politics & Government

PACE Changing Two Lisle Routes Next Month

Low ridership leads to cut stops on routes 828 and 829.

PACE Bus will shed several stops off routes 828 and 829 beginning Aug. 1, citing low ridership to office parks vacated during the economic downturn.

"For a long time, some of the larger office complexes in that area, on Warrenville Road, were unoccupied," Pace spokesman Patrick Wilmot said. "With Navistar coming in, we took the opportunity to make some changes to the 829 and 828 to streamline the routing and make it a little bit simpler for new users."

The 828, which delivers workers from residential areas in Lisle to the local Metra station, will discontinue service from Arboretum Village and to the Hyatt of Lisle. However, a bus will leave from Ogden Avenue and Fender Road at 7:45 a.m. daily to meet the 8:09 a.m. Metra train heading east to Chicago.

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The 829, which runs from the Lisle Metra station to office parks including Navistar's, will discontinue service on Western Avenue and will reduce trips to Molex on Ogden and Western avenues. A detour out of the Navistar parking lot is also effective immediately during construction.

The changes come after a last month at Village Hall. Wilmot said 16 people attended the hearing, and Pace has since received 12 written comments.

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"A lot of the comments we received were either people asking about whether their particular employer would be served," Wilmot said. "But by and large, the ridership numbers just weren't there to justify the deviations."

Both the 828 and 829 have been operating since 1979, before Pace's existence. Since then, Wilmot said several "deviations" were drawn up on the routes for area employers. He added that deviations being cut in August are too impractical to continue serving.

Wilmot said the 829, in particular, was inefficient. Pace's farebox recovery ratio, or ratio of fare revenue versus cost of operation, was just 11 percent in the 4th quarter of 2010. Pace's subsidy per rider on the 829 during that same period was $12.88.

"Our maximum standard is $4, so it was well out of compliance with that," Wilmot said.

For more information on the new 828, including route map and schedule, click here. For more information on the 829, click here.

Patch will update this story as more information is available.

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