Hoosiers grab rides 'outside the box'

Donald Mason, 35, boards a bus in the wee, dark hours of the morning in the parking lot of a shuttered unemployment office in economically distressed Gary.

Some 45 minutes later, he is on the job as a supervisor at the UPS distribution center in Hodgkins, Ill., pulling down a wage and benefits he could only dream about getting in Gary for similar work.

But despite living in a city with Northwest Indiana's largest bus system, he is not able to catch one of its buses to his job at UPS. Instead, he and 180 others ride express buses provided by PACE, the suburban Chicago bus agency based in Arlington Heights.

"I don't know if the city is just cheap or what," Mason said, getting off the PACE bus one day last month in Gary. "It shouldn't take for PACE to come all the way out here. That's just sad."

As Northwest Indiana bus services continue to decline, and officials haggle over how best to manage its mass transit, hundreds of region residents are getting to work, shopping and school every day courtesy of Illinois transit agencies.

Interviews with riders and data kept by those agencies show Indiana commuters are riding PACE vans, PACE buses and Metra trains to destinations across the south suburbs and as far north as Evanston. Sometimes, they use private cabs to get to Metra stops, paying fares of $25 or more one way.

"Indiana residents and travelers are using a huge range of methods to get where they need to go," said Joseph Schwieterman, a professor at DePaul University and director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. "Many are looking outside the box for solutions."

Northwest Indiana clearly has inadequate mass transit services when compared to Illinois, Schwieterman said. That's true both in urban areas such as Hammond and Gary and more suburban locations like Valparaiso and Merrillville.

PACE's broad reach into the Northwest Indiana market is "remarkable," particularly given the financial pressures on the Illinois transit agency, Schwieterman said.

As part of another creative alternative provided by Illinois, some 350 Northwest Indiana riders per day ride PACE vans with a driver who takes the van home every night, according to PACE figures.

Picking up the PACE

Two PACE bus routes stop at the Dan Rabin Transit Plaza in Hammond, with their combined 79 departures per day outstripping the 74 for Hammond Transit, which runs every bus route it has through the center. PACE even offers rides from there on Saturdays and Sundays, when Hammond Transit shuts down.

And though no one keeps official data, license plate counts at seven Metra stops stretching from University Park in the south to Homewood in the north show more than 100 Northwest Indiana residents drive there every day to catch Metra trains into Chicago.

The South Shore commuter railroad still is the dominant provider of mass transit rides between Northwest Indiana and the Chicago Loop, with an average of 5,100 riders per day catching the train in Lake and Porter counties.

But plans to extend the South Shore's reach to south Lake and Porter counties appear to be on a slow track. For the foreseeable future, people living there will have to continue seeking other options to get to high-paying jobs in Chicago and Illinois.

For mass transit promoters, the broad reach and multiple options offered by the Illinois transit agencies continue to serve as a powerful everyday reminder of just how spotty mass transit services are in Northwest Indiana.

Hammond Transit Director Keith Matasovsky sees the full irony of PACE buses outnumbering Hammond Transit buses at his city's transit center.

Ridership on Hammond buses is declining because of a lack of money for marketing, the sparse schedules run by Hammond Transit buses and the continual maintenance problems that crop up because buses can't be replaced, Matasovsky said.

"Illinois people just have higher expectations of mass transit than people in Northwest Indiana," he said.

NWI's RBA trying to meet region demand

The Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority has been examining all mass transit options for commuters as it lays plans for launching its own express bus service from Lake County to downtown Chicago, according to RBA Executive Director Tim Brown.

"I'm sure when PACE started they were not foreseeing coming to Indiana," Brown said. "They were there to serve their suburbs. But that's what we've become. We are now a suburb of Chicago."

ChicaGo Dash, an express bus service to the Loop from Valparaiso, is the only Indiana-based public mass transit provider to Chicago other than the South Shore. The city's redevelopment commission contracted last year with a private bus company to provide the service.

So far, ridership has been light, with only about 18 people per day on the buses in early August. But redevelopment commission Executive Director Stu Summers believes it eventually will attract more riders.

"It's just basic economics, supply and demand," Summers said. "There are good paying jobs in Chicago. It's a world-class city with a world-class economy."

Some Northwest Indiana transit providers are starting to see the Illinois agencies as part of the solution here.

At the RBA, Brown said his agency has had discussions with PACE about working together on a route that would run from Hammond along the Highland-Schererville retail corridor on Indianapolis Boulevard and perhaps farther south.

In July, the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission concluded an agreement with PACE to promote the PACE online RideShare program that matches up people who want to car pool. Only 69 Northwest Indiana residents use the service now, but NIRPC officials hope a vigorous promotional drive can increase those numbers.

Hammond stop one of PACE's busiest

PACE has served the Northwest Indiana market for years and will continue to do so, according to spokesman Patrick Wilmont. The Illinois suburban bus agency seeks to make regional connections regardless of municipal or even state borders, he said.

"Our services are market-driven," Wilmont said.

The PACE buses pulling into Hammond's Dan Rabin Transit Plaza are a prime example of that, Wilmont said.

One of those routes has an average weekday ridership of 3,019 -- making it one of the busiest routes in the entire PACE system.

"If we didn't see sufficient demand coming out of Hammond, we would not continue to stop there," Wilmont said. "But the market is there."

Both PACE routes going through the Hammond transit center allow people to connect with jobs, shopping and numerous schools, Wilmont said. River Oaks Mall is a popular stop, and so is Orland Square Mall, in Orland Park.

"That's what people look for when they look for bus routes," Wilmont said.

The PACE buses running from Gary and East Chicago to the Hodgkins UPS center are paid for by UPS, Wilmont said.

Danisha Williams, 31, of Hammond, was waiting for a PACE bus at the Dan Rabin Transit Plaza last month. Wearing a red shirt and Target store badge, she was waiting for the bus to take her to her job at the store on Torrence Avenue in Calumet City.

Without the bus, she would have to look for a job in the Hammond area, because one-way cab fare of $10 to $12 to the Target store would be out of the question. She has followed the brouhaha over continuing Hammond's bus service and efforts to consolidate and expand the region's multiple bus providers.

She thinks it's a shame Northwest Indiana's own bus services can't be brought up to PACE standards.

"There are a lot of people who use the buses to get around," she said. "Hopefully they will make them better."

PACE in Northwest Indiana

Chicago suburban mass transit provider PACE has a big footprint in Northwest Indiana, filling a gap left by the region's own limited mass transit services.

PACE van pools: 350 riders per day

PACE RideShare car pools: 69 riders per day

PACE buses: 79 departures per day from Hammond's Dan Rabin Plaza Center

PACE express buses: 6 departures per day from Gary; 1 from East Chicago