Pace Suburban Bus on Wednesday unveiled a draft ReVision plan that would increase suburban bus service by 50% overall across its six-county Chicago-area region, with buses running as often as every 15 minutes on major routes, doubled Saturday service, tripled Sunday service, later evening hours, and new direct routes to O'Hare and Midway airports. The plan is a draft open for public comment, and Pace said the proposed plan would be submitted to the Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA) for future regional planning efforts once that feedback phase concludes.
Pace Unveils Ambitious ReVision Plan for Suburban Bus Service
Pace announced the Draft ReVision Plan on October 21, 2026, describing it as a proposal to transform suburban bus service across its six-county region "for the way people travel today." The plan calls for a 50% overall increase in service across three of Pace's service types: Pulse lines, fixed routes, and On Demand service, with more frequent, connected, and accessible options, particularly at night and on weekends.
According to Pace's project materials, the goal is to make transit more useful to more people throughout Northeast Illinois: bus routes would be more frequent, would serve more places, and more buses would run every day and later in the evening. The agency summarizes the rider-facing promise as the ability to "go more places, in less time," which it says would bring Pace in line with its closest peer agencies.
The ReVision effort has been years in the making. Pace launched ReVision in late 2023, and planning work continued through 2024, a period the Chicago Tribune's Marni Pyke notes coincided with a transit funding crisis. During that period, Pace surveyed riders on options such as running buses every 15 to 30 minutes seven days a week and expanding routes across the suburbs. The draft plan released this week is the first comprehensive public proposal to emerge from that process, and it reflects what the surveys suggested riders wanted: service that fits trips beyond the traditional downtown commute.
Pace ReVision: Breaking Down the Proposed Service Boost
The headline "50% increase" is an aggregate figure, and on its own it tells a rider little about what would actually change on the street. Deconstructed into its components, the draft plan proposes improvements in several distinct categories, drawn from Pace's announcement and news reports of the plan:
| Type of Improvement | Specific Change Proposed |
|---|---|
| Overall service | A 50% overall increase in service across Pulse lines, fixed routes, and On Demand service |
| Weekday frequency | Buses every 15 minutes on major routes such as Touhy Road, and every 30 minutes on a number of busy corridors |
| Saturday service | Suburban bus service on Saturdays would double |
| Sunday service | Sunday service would triple |
| Evening hours | More buses would run later in the evening, with improved options at night |
| Route destinations | Routes would be extended to enable more direct travel to destinations including O'Hare and Midway international airports |
| Geographic coverage | Every county in Pace's service area would receive at least a 45% increase in service, officials said |
For a rider, the frequency changes are the most tangible piece. A bus every 15 minutes, as proposed for major routes like Touhy Road, means a missed bus no longer derails a trip, because the wait for the next one is short enough to plan around. The 30-minute headways proposed for a number of busy corridors represent a similar shift from schedules riders must consult to service they can largely show up and use. The weekend changes are proportionally the largest: doubling Saturday service and tripling Sunday service would address what has historically been the sparsest part of the suburban schedule, and Pace's announcement specifically flags nights and weekends as areas where it wants more frequent, connected, and accessible options.
The Daily Herald's report on the plan provides the most specific quantified examples, including the weekend doubling and tripling and the 15- and 30-minute frequency targets. Pace's own materials add an important caveat: "Many routes would change; a few would be removed." That means the network restructuring would not be purely additive for every existing rider, and some riders could see their current route altered or discontinued even as the network as a whole grows.
Pace Executive Director Melvin Gerber—identified in the Daily Herald's report as Metzger—framed the plan as a response to shifting travel behavior: "Travel patterns have changed, and fewer people commute downtown every day. Public input and ridership trends show growing demand for nontraditional transit trips — and when we increase frequency and make our service faster, ridership grows."
Plan Scope: Who and Where is Affected?
The plan covers Pace's entire six-county service area: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties. Officials said every county would receive at least a 45% increase in service, a projection intended to spread the benefits broadly rather than concentrate them in a few corridors. That floor matters for riders in the outer suburbs, where service today is thinnest.
Reporting on the plan describes its aim as increasing ridership with more frequent buses and reducing "transit deserts" in far-flung communities from rural McHenry County to south suburban Cook County. The 50% growth target applies across the three service types named in the announcement: fixed routes, Pulse lines on corridors such as the Dempster Street Line and Cermak/22nd Street Line, and On Demand service. Pulse is Pace's arterial rapid-transit product, while On Demand provides flexible, reservation-based trips, so the proposal spans both high-ridership corridors and lower-density areas where traditional fixed routes struggle.
One significant condition attaches to all of this. The Tribune reports that the expansion options surveyed in 2024, including the 15-to-30-minute frequencies and expanded routes, would be contingent on additional revenues. The draft plan describes what Pace wants to build, not a funded, adopted service change.
The Road Ahead: Public Feedback and Next Steps
The plan is currently a draft, not an adopted budget or implemented schedule. Its immediate next phase is public engagement: Pace is soliciting feedback through forums and surveys, giving riders and residents a formal opportunity to shape the final proposal. Only after that feedback period does Pace intend to submit the revised plan to the Northern Illinois Transit Authority for integration into broader regional transit planning.
Because the plan is a draft, the specific improvements described above could change before adoption. The public comment period is the point at which those changes get made, and riders whose routes fall into the "few would be removed" category have a direct stake in participating. The sequence is fixed even where the outcome is not: comment first, revision second, then submission to NITA.
What's Next for Pace ReVision?
Commuters and residents should review the draft plan and provide feedback during the public comment period to influence the final proposal. The measurable indicator to watch is the submission of the revised plan to the Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA) and subsequent regional planning updates, which will signal whether the proposed 50% service increase, the doubled Saturdays, the tripled Sundays, and the 15-minute corridors survive the feedback process and move toward implementation.
Sources
- Pace Unveils Bold Draft ReVision Plan to Deliver More Frequent, Connected, and Accessible Suburban Bus Service — Pace Suburban Bus
- ReVision: Pace's Network Restructuring Plan — Pace Suburban Bus
- Pace unveils ambitious plan to boost suburban bus service by 50% — Chicago Tribune
- Dailyherald
