The Times Weekly, News Service 

PLAINFIELD, IL – officials from Pace, Will County, the Village of Plainfield, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) and Illinois, joined representatives from Northern Builders, Inc. to celebrate Pace’s new maintenance and storage garage near the Pace Plainfield Park-n-Ride on Depot Drive. Pace Chairman Rick Kwasneski, Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, Illinois Senator Meg Loughran Cappel, Plainfield Mayor John F. Argoudelis, RTA Chairman Kirk Dillard, and Pace Executive Director Melinda Metzger offered comments at the event.

Also in attendance were Pace Director Terrance Carr; former Pace Director and former Mayor of Bolingbrook Roger Claar; representatives from Senator Tammy Duckworth’s office; Tom Flynn, President, Teamsters Local 179; Hugh O’Hara, Executive Director of the Will County Governmental League; Doug Pryor, President & CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development; Workforce Investment Board of Will County Director Caroline L. Portlock; Plainfield Village Administrator Joshua Blakemore;  Matthew Grusecki, Senior Vice President of Northern Builders; and representatives from RTA, Metra, and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The $52 million facility is built on an 11.92-acre site was funded by Pace using resources from the State’s Rebuild Illinois Capital Program. Pace joins the Village of Plainfield and Northern Builders, Inc. as part of their Depot Drive Public-Private Partnership, where Northern Builders, Inc. serves as the Design-Build Contractor to design and construct the facility.

This facility will allow for the expansion of Pace’s Bus on Shoulder Express Service and create space for additional vehicles needed to operate the popular service which takes commuters from various south region park-n-rides to downtown Chicago using the shoulder on I-55 to bypass congestion. Pre-pandemic, ridership on the service grew over 600% since the implementation of shoulder use in 2011. The service again seeing full parking lots and buses as riders return.

“In 2011, the State of Illinois passed forward-thinking legislation that allowed us to start our Bus on Shoulder Express Service. This service sails past traffic, offering direct routes with trip times that are often faster than driving. That is public transportation at its finest,” said RTA Chairman Kirk Dillard. “Bus on Shoulder passengers can transfer to CTA and Metra to get from the southwest suburbs to virtually anywhere in Chicagoland. The RTA is proud to support this investment, which benefits the entire region.”