I grew up in Chicago and moved away after school. I miss the Chicago street grid and the simplicity of Chicago's bus routes so much. If you know how to walk somewhere or drive somewhere in Chicago, you automatically know how to take the bus there. This is so powerful, and so rare outside of Chicago.
I had a similar experience with the Vegas bus system. It's car centric as hell, but the buses "take advantage" of that grid of stroads with good coverage across the metro area too. Didn't realize Chicago buses followed that system too.
The Bus 69 here used to have 7 routes depending on time of day and day of the week it would take one of them. It was confusing and the display on the outside would only show the destination. The line passes through 2 different states with different holidays and sometimes none had an idea what route to take not even the driver. On a day where one state had an holiday and the other didn’t the driver made up a 8th route stoping at all stops from both other routes. One route used to have 5 deviations and two 3 point turns. The bus would change from the 69 to the 68 at one end of the line. The 68 had two routes of it’s own so there was a possibility of 14 different routings.
@@Thom-TRA There used to be a tram in my city that run around a loop differed ways depending on the time of day, and everyone loved it as soon as they changed people stopped using it.
Finally, somebody who talks about the challenges of taking buses. When I take the train, I lead the way, but I have only managed taking a bus when I let somebody else lead the way.
From what I understand, in Illinois, calling a municipality a 'village' or a 'city' or a 'town' is based on population and then whether it is automatically home rule or is voted on. Also, cities and towns typically have mayors while villages have managers. Even then, there may be other factors. But this is Illinois and nothing is simple and straightforward.
@@Thom-TRA Villages can also have mayors. Cities have alderman while villages have trustees. Rolling Meadows has aldermen, while Hoffman Estates has a board of trustees. Villages usually have a mayor and manager.
"this is Illinois and nothing is simple and straightforward". The grid system is so simple and the land is so flat, they had to make *something* complex 😂
I just happened to try out Route 626 last week. It is indeed a confusing route. It's the only taking I-94 North, and the two directions are completely different. There's only 3 buses in the peak direction, and 8 or so in the opposite one every half-day. The peak direction is fast and almost non-stop, the other one is almost twice as long. The two directions only meet briefly close to the Buffalo Grove end, in the middle of an office and industrial park. We were 7 passengers on the bus going North in the afternoon, and only 2 in the opposite one, myself included. I think it could be much more successful if it had a clear itinerary and schedule, and served population centers rather than office parks
@@Thom-TRA There's a street called Fry St somewhere in Chicago and I also find it funny and that's not the only funny street name in Chicago or in the suburbs
A half glass half full type view - it seems it'd be good to group all the industry in one area so it's not interspersed in communities as it does tend to necessitate the heavy roads & rail. And that industry is essential to our daily life. So in that sense there's a good reason for that area to exist.
Good video, as a Chicagoan I know that basically all of the pace buses are confusing. :) also the Allstate area is also for the minor league hockey team the Chicago wolves.
I remember when it was called the Rosemont Horizon. Also the speculation about why the roof collapsed during construction. Was it a low flying aircraft? There is a runway approach that is low over the arena. Was it a gust of wind? Or was it poor planning and 53 percent of the required bolts not being installed? Then a year later the concrete stands under construction collapsed bringing 34 tons of concrete to the ground. Hopefully it was reconstructed properly.
Wow Thom, this was very typical of your previous videos and measuring up to your high standards; It was, as usual, interesting and informative with lots of graphics to help clarify your dialogue. The video brought back memories of the time I grew up in Palatine, Illinois and took the bus, as a change of pace, to downtown Chicago to the old bus station on Lake Street. I loved the slower pace of the trip, since I was going to Chicago to visit my grandparents. I then caught the Ravenswood L to Diversey, where both of my Omas lived within a couple blocks from the Diversey L station. Usually I took the C&NW from Palatine to the C&NW terminal on Canal Street and then walked to the Adams and Wabash L station. Incidentally the commuter bus line wasn't called PACE, and the trip cost less than the train. Also at that time the C&NW livery was green and yellow, and I believe that the C&NW Railroad was the first to use the double deck cars with the control cab in the rear car when heading out of Chicago. Thanks for sharing your feelings about the industrial glut and environmental "smut" of that area along your previous trips to work when you lived in Chicago.
I remember that bus! The last private bus company on that line was called United Motor Coach. They ran yellow and blue buses. The line on Northwest Highway ran all the way from the Wisconsin state line (a highway intersection called Big Foot Prairie) in to Jefferson Park neighborhood in Chicago, where it turned onto Foster Avenue to Lake Shore Drive, then down Michigan Avenue. The bus got onto the lower level of Wacker Drive to get into the Greyhound Bus station. It was like the bus went into its own subway! That was only one of the routes United Motor Coach ran. Most of them were in Des Plaines where they ran local lines as well. When you got on the United Motor Coach bus and paid your fare, the driver gave you a little cardboard ticket called a hat check with the name of your destination zone printed on it. As a teenager, I often rode the bus from Arlington Heights to Skokie, where I got on the Skokie Swift L. From Arlington Heights to Skokie was an odd fare and the drivers never could remember how much it was supposed to be. As a result, I don't think I ever paid the same fare twice! One year, United Motor Coach bought some used buses from somewhere in the South. Back then, bus service in the South was segregated. Black people had to get on in the front of the bus, pay their fare, then get off the bus and go get on at the back door and sit in the back of the bus (if there were any seats). As a result, the back door on those buses was operated by a control on the driver's dash board instead of automatically by the treadle pad by the back door. A driver explained all this to me.
@@Thom-TRA Palatine got its name because many of the early settlers came from the Rhineland Palatinate in Germany. There was some quaint German-style architecture in downtown Palatine when I was a kid. Palatine had an interurban line that ran north from town to Camp Reinberg that had been an army base during World War I. The interurban line was single tracked. They never electrified it so it ran a gasoline-powered car. When the war ended and Camp Reinberg closed, the interurban closed too.
Chicagoan here. Village are pretty much when town becomes a town. If one part becomes populated enough (typically unincorporated parts of already exciting village) they can make their own village. Not as easy as that obviously. Need to establish a city consul and some other paperwork to apply but that’s why there’s a lot of villages around the chi subs. I’ll link the Illinois home rule page below this if you want to learn more. 4:44
familiar with this bus and used to work in Rosemont for approx 10 years..... there's residental areas outside of the downtown area. There's a reason why it's called PACE lol. Elk Grove sucks because it's industrial so literally there's no place to really hang out to wait for the bus especially in inclement weather. Also noticed the trash too
Just to add to the confusion, south of the airport, south of Irving Park Road, Busse Highway is called Kingery Road. Still the same Road Route number (#83), but different suburbs like having their own name for a road. And yes, of the many things that drive me crazy about Chicago transportation is putting advertisements covering the windows. It's like looking through a microwave oven door. Thanks for the video. Pat, in Chicago
When a bus is covered with an advertisement over the windows and doors, sometimes the advertisement shades the bus passengers from the direct sunlight which is good so you don't get blinded as much. It's good to protect your eyes from direct light or you could go blind.
I grew up in Berwyn, Illinois. I am old enough (60) to be pre-RTA. I was 10 when the RTA came into being. While not complicated, the best and most circuitous route was the West Towns Route 305. It may have been the longest. It ran from the Morton Community College Campus, essentially 39th/Laramie, north to Roosevelt, west to Desplaines, north to Madison, east to Harlem, north to Chicago and East to Austin. It was a great route to go anywhere in North Berwyn and Oak Park. Since I left Berwyn in 1983, the RTA/Pace has shortened the route and divided the pieces of the original route among other routes, eliminating the Chicago Ave, portion between Harlem and Chicago, severing an important connection between Oak Park and Chicago. Except for Chicago Ave., the route pieces Where a rider once was able to get to multiple locations on a single route, one must transfer at least one and maybe twice to get to the same locations. I wish I had encountered you on one of your trips. I know a great deal about the history of transit in the Chicago area and why routes go where they do.
I can very much relate to the head-spinning nature of PACE routes at times. Can I also say how impressive it is how much footage you take! Very comprehensive and relevant. Makes for a much more informative watch, thanks! Same goes for the maps
When I was a kid in the late 70s I took the Pace bus from Palatine to Woodfied a few times for fun. It was a school bus at the time. It would also stop at Harper College and Motorola Headquarters along with stopping on demand.
In Seattle, there used to have a bunch of routes from 171 to 179 that run from downtown to Federal Way, with most of them running park hours only. Today, only 177 remained, 174 turned into RapidRide A in 2009, 178 and 179 are still suspended since COVID. The rest are deleted.
Also, in Hong Kong, ex-NWFB, now CTB 14 from Sai Wan Ho to Stanley has not 1, not 2, but 6 routings in Stanley, and 5 going back. I recently did this route on this game called City Bus Manager and took me 2 hours to get all scheduled right 😅
Going back to when you said, you knew someone who was born and raised in Rosemont; Rosemont does have a population of about 4,000. It’s just a small area sandwiched between the Metra NCS tracks near O’Hare Transfer station and I-90. Not a lot of people know about it and it’s easy to miss since it’s such a small portion of Rosemont
@@Thom-TRAI used to take that route from Elk Grove to the airport regularly for work. It's definitely confusing for newer commuters, and more designed for Mon-Fri workers that don't work late. There's been a couple times where I had to either walk home or call a cab after getting stuck at work after the last bus.
I never been on this bus route but it took me some time to know what it meant and what direction it’s going. I like how one of them travels through that industrial park with a bunch of railroad crossings. Somewhere in that area there was a derailment of one of the hopper cars that it crashed into a building next to it. It only looked like there was damage on the outside and it happened I believe back in the fall. It should’ve been moving at a slow speed which it usually would.
Hi Thom. The CUE Bus in Fairfax, VA used to confuse me; especially when I was a student at George Mason University 30 years ago. The routes are Gold 1, Gold 2, Green 1 and Green 2. The routes loop; beginning and ending at the Vienna Metrorail station. The 1 busses run in a clockwise loop and the 2 busses run in a counterclockwise loop. If I need to take a CUE, I can look at the schedule and routes using my mobile device. 30 years ago, you just had to remember what bus ran in which direction. I would always forget.
Not all suburbs are villages. Villages tend to be part of townships which help orchestrate municipal services like water and sometimes waste removal and sewers. Some larger suburbs like Des Plaines are cities.
As someone who lives on the very edge of the business park, it's incredibly frustrating here. During the winter, there's an obnoxious whining sound that comes out of a building by the post office. In EGV, the only real thing to do here is leave. Ironically, the summer events are shockingly good, as we had The Beach Boys (or whoever's left of Mike Love's mercs) with John Stamos as well as Neon Trees do summer concerts. Couple this with the neighboring town of Schaumburg housing the largest consolidated RETAIL area with Woodfield and you get just this weird suburban hellscape. And I grew up in Wood Dale, whose only real claim to fame is that it built a bridge that didn't connect to anything for almost a decade. That said, Rosemont station does connect to a TON of great show venues via the Blue Line. You've also got Busse Woods on the other side of a major residential block, which is a gorgeous, massive forest preserve with an 11 mile trail and multiple attractions. EGV also makes a killing due to the corporate tax and our local amenities are absolutely fantastic. Great local gym, tons of parks, plenty of civic events if you're into that sort of thing... But like I said, if you're not actively bringing up a family, and you're seeking some form of entertainment, you're gonna have to get out of the village. Also, as it's been communicated in other comments: the village vs. city has a lot to do with how the town's administrative structure is set up. Wood Dale is a city, but Elk Grove and Bensenville are villages. Wood Dale has wards led aldermen in addition to city council, Bensenville and EG have boards of trustees. Great video from a lifelong local.
I’ve driven around that industrial park many times looking at the various railroad crossings and hoping to catch a train in action. Every time I see this area, I wish all the warehouses and buildings had solar panels covering the roofs. We need more solar, and warehouse roofs are perfect, non obtrusive places to put it.
I agree with you Thom! Pace needs to make passenger information better or just renumder these route variants. In Moscow we had another problem with trams... People in this city usually read the number of route, but not the terminal on the destination sign, so short turns for the tram routes had numbers "35K", "43K" etc. K - means "korotkiy" (or "short" in English). But after route number reforms they ripped out "K" letter for short turns and just changed terminal names on destination signs. As a result people became confused when tram had number 35 or 43, but made short deviations. Many people had written complaints about this reform, but government made one more reform and now we have for example 47 tram route and its short turn version - 49. It is also inconvenient because you need remember two route numbers. It is interesting that not all tram short-turns have their own numbers, so passengers should be careful and watch the terminal destination sign, but sometimes occasions take place... because of poor information policy. Often trams in Moscow follow from/to depot throught lines of other routes with passengers. For example in place where I live we have regular tram routes: "A", "12", "38" and "43". Thanks for depot runs this stop is also served by "1a", 3a", "16a", "26a", "47a" and "49a" routes. People just don't understand what are these routes and where do they go... As a result, passengers simply ignore them, although many people use the tram to travel 3-5 stops, so these routes would be okay for people or even more optimal because they provides direct service. In Moscow when you have no transfers - you have no extra pay. It is necessary to improve the information for passengers - place it on the website and stops. There are needed schemes of these depot-routes and schedules. Because now literally tram fans or tram-department employees know about these "secret" tram routes.
@@Thom-TRA Russian and Dutch are Indo-European languages, so people who speak these languages can understand some of the most common words, for example the words: Sun, Mother, Sister, Brother, Water, Moon, Short and some others :) As a child, I studied Slavic languages, as well as English, and now I’m studying Spanish. Also, as a child, I invented languages myself, and I also noted with curiosity the similarities between different languages, including Germanic ones - English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Icelandic and others. "Basic words” have the same root in Indo-European languages. Plus there is a certain amount of historical borrowing between languages - for example, in Ukrainian word "electric current" is "струм" (strum) - it is similar to German word "Strom", so this is borrowing. The same situation with word Sputnik in English, it is borrowing from Russian - Спутник (Sputnik). Latin word "Caesar" was borrowed in German as "Kaiser" and in Russian as "Царь" (Tsar). But many other words, which are not "basic" became different in Indo-European languages, that is why languages are further divided into language families: Slavic, Germanic, Romance, and these families also have an internal division among themselves. For example - word "flow" in Slavic languages and in Gelmanic languages has a different root. And when Englishman or American say "flow", it is understandable for German guy who say "fließen" (flissen) or "strom" (as I remember Dutch people use word "stroom" also), or for Dane - "flyde" (floo), even for people from Iceland where they say "flæði" (Flaithi)... But for Slavic people - "flow" or the same words are not understandable, because we use: Течение (Techenie)(Russian), Течiя (Techia)(Ukrainian), Przepływ (Pzhepliiv)(Polish) (it is still can be understandable for russian, ukrainian and belorussian, because we have word "плавать" (plavat')(swim) and word prefix "пере-" (pere-)(re-), so different meanings and slightly different sounds, but overall still okay), Tok (Czech), Проток/Protok (Serbian), Teći (Techi) (Croatian). Sorry for this very long linguistic comment. While I was writing it on the subway, I didn’t think it would be so long. I hope it was interesting and informative for you!
I LOVE these types of videos. As a lifelong chicago resident ive been through so many areas of chicago and learned a lot of neat little things. I have half a mind to make my own videos on chicago but idk about what lol. Anyway. To see someone making a video of one specific bus route is honestly really great. Good work. Hope to see more atuff like this.
The combo route CTA/Pace 17/310/317 was a "branching routes" of the CTA 17 - This was because the 17 was supposed to be terminated but wasn't as it was the "required" replacement of the demolished 'L' line (before CTA) to service Westchester.
Rosemont also serves a significant office park w/ many offices offering shuttles to/from the L. There's a significant entertainment district, and a lot of people stay there when visiting Chicago. (Also, most people in Rosemont live off Higgins btwn Manheim & River or over by Allstate.)
The 626 is primarily "reverse commute" service out to Lincolnshire in the morning and back in the PM rush. The peak direction service is an operational afterthought. I used to take it to the end of the line every day, which happened to be in front of my office.
Used to take the 223 to work for years. Getting back to Rosemont was a pain. If you missed one bus it was 30 mins to the next one. They must have changed it because when I rode there was only one route.
Many buses in NYC have this split route approach and are even more confusing. The Q1 for example has two branches which each end at a different place. However, there is nothing to distinguish them, at the bus stop, only on the bus itself, which can sometimes have broken screens. If you are in NYC you should take the B39 which is really interesting. It only runs because there is no elevators at Marcy Av, so mostly disabled/old people use it. It runs every 30 minutes for most of the day.
I so much LOVED watching this video. I have lived on the border of IL/WI for the past 20 years, but prior to that I lived in Edgewater and Evanston. I did not own a car so the CTA, Metra and PACE were my primary source of transportation for 30+ years. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, I lived and "died" by the CTA/PACE/Metra. I became such a connoisseur that friends, family and complete strangers would seek me out for information. I had that swager of a seasoned public transportation commuter. This was the years before cell phones and then later all these great Apps people now take for granted were not yet on the scene. I sometimes miss those days, and now feel like an alien from another planet on the rare occasions I take public transportation to/from Chicago. Thank you for helping remember some of my adventures; especially, on those brutal winters.
Here in the UK, these seperate bus services would be numbered 223, 223A and X223 (or 223E, 222W & 223X), not sure why they didn't add a suffix to the route number or apply a completely different route number for the deviations. That map also looks a bit confusing, not sure why they didn't change the colour for the 223E, 223W & 223X or use a different shade of black which is what is done here in London.
In Switzerland you can have a Bus line with 7 or 8 different routes and the bus has the same number and destination. The only way to tell which route the bus will take is by looking at the geometric shape behind the time of the bus on the timetable and then looking on the route table which stops the shape will do. This confusing mess is only done by the sate sponsored Postauto buses almost all other companies will use different route numbers.
This reminds me of a bus route over here in the UK, it's the 229 bus route in Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeare's hometown) where the destination changes depending on what time of day it is. In the morning there's one trip from Ullenhall and one from Snitterfield (both nearby villages) into Stratford. There are 3 circular trips on it during the day which serve the local villages to the north of the town. Around 4pm there is a trip that goes from Stratford back to Ullenhall, but doesn't return. At 6:25pm there is a trip on the route that goes somewhere completely different, it goes to Redditch which is almost 20 miles away from Stratford and that's the last trip of the day. I rode the last trip to Redditch once and I really enjoyed it! It's my first time on this channel, loved the video and I've subscribed.
Which is your favorite bus fleet in Chicago? I have lived in Chicago for two years and I loved the New Flyer D40LF, DE60LF and DE60LFR. Nova buses are okay, I just found them very noisy. Not a big fan of Pace fleet.
Don’t forget the USPS processing facility on Busee and Mark street. I work there and we call the facility “Busse” even tho it’s called Chicago Metro Surface hub
I'm all too familiar with riding circuitous pace routes. My local routes use the older busses (2006 or so), that means the diesel fumes can get to ya if you sit too close to the back for too long. I hope those commutes weren't too painful. Thanks for the video!
Yes -- I've been on this bus and you're at the mercy of scheduling - which showed me no mercy that day; one of the hottest days this year (took it for the first time sometime in July); I had no water left, did not realize that you stand on the same side of the street going back as you did coming (I called RTA twice just to make sure they were telling me the correct way home); and the next bus was 2 hours away -- 2 flipping hours !!!!
The village thing is a type of governance. Villages don’t have aldermans. Cities have alderman’s. Towns don’t have townships. So like Cicero is its own township. Evanston was originally supposed to change to a town when they got rid of the township but I think they stuck as a city
Not sure why they're so popular here, but villages are actually a specific kind of government. Illinois unlike some states does not have a population limit on villages. Because of these two factors Illinois is home to many of the largest villages in the country.
This was fun. I ride the Pace 223W from home to my job in Elk Grove Village whenever it rains or snows hard. Otherwise, I'm on my bike. Most days I bike south on Western Avenue to the Metra station at Grand, and then take my bike on the train to Wooddale and bike up Wooddale from there. So 8 miles biking and about 40 minutes on the train, or the #81 Lawrence bus, the Blue line L, and the Pace 223W. Either approach takes 90 minutes, good time to write letters or read. Sometimes I have my work laptop with me, too, though I don't work at home very often. I have joked that Elk Grove Village is not known for its elk or groves; I was surprised to learn that this is the largest business complex in the country. But the massive Busse Woods Forest Preserve is a great place for a long bicycle ride, dense forests, and they feature a herd of elk there too! I biked across Busse Woods late one evening and dodged two possums and a skunk. You won't see them on Touhy Avenue. Not much else going on in Elk Grove Village, admittedly, I would agree with you on that. But the Pace 223 has served me pretty well. I can take the 223E route if that's what shows up at Rosemont first, I just need to walk farther, west on Devon to Lively from Busse Highway. I really like my job in Elk Grove Village, and public transit is my life. My wife and I haven't owned a car for nearly 40 years, and I spent many years biking to the Loop for work, about 7.5 miles as opposed to 8 these days. I miss working in the Loop, but I'm happy to have landed my current position after getting laid off in May of 2022.
Community transit of Snohomish county, WA uses the same style buses with the same type of seats but with different colours and patterns on the seats but with the same frame and layouts with the same yellow pull stop cord. Those seats are not very comfortable if you have to sit on them for an hour or so or more. I usually like sitting in the front area where the wheelchair parking is in the front. I noticed that listening to the radio AM FM gets affected by the bus. You should look into community transit route 201/202 which is like this where near 95% of both routes are the same except north of Marysville, WA which means two different bus numbers but end /start in Smokey point wa and Lynnwood wa.
@@Thom-TRA unfortunately I have too many disabilities to manage the multiple (including 14hr+) flights :( we’re planning for her to come down here next year though
Check out Pace route 354. It’s a circulator route that begins and ends at the Harvey Transportation center and serves Harvey, Dixmoor, Posen, Midlothian, Oak Forest and Markham. What’s weird about it is it’s a dual circulator. One goes clockwise and the other goes counterclockwise.
So being from Ottawa, Canada, we don't really have a grid system for buses to follow, so everything's kind of confusing to begin with and the destination signs on buses don't say too much either. For example on Transitways (dedicated bus roads), you may see a bus who's destination is only shown as a few stop further down the Transitway, however what the headsign doesn't show is that the bus breaks out of the Transitway and goes on a whole local routing before jumping back on and terminating 4 Transitway stops down from where you started We also have tons of modified rush hour service, also during school peaks many routes are truncated to serve specifically a high school in the area... (also they're jam packed with students, barely any standing room) So yeah, the Transit app is your best friend over here :D
Here in NYC the confusing bus routes is the Bx23, Q10, Q38 and maybe the Q37/B. Some bus routes has 2 different terminals on northern, western, eastern or southern ends such as Q1, Q11/B, Q30, Q36, Q46, B17, B38, B41 Local/Limited & soon to be SBS, B44 Local & SBS, B46 Local & SBS, Bx12 Local & SBS, Bx13, M1, M4. Staten Island is the only boro that doesn't follow how the MTA bus guide between the Local, Limited & Select Bus Service counterparts for example M101 Local/Limited, Bx41 Local/Select Bus Service compare to S44, S46, S48, S51, S59, S61, S62, S74 & S76 Local & their Limited counterparts S90, S94, S96, S98, S89 S81, S91, S92, S84 & S86. The express is also a mess.
The whole place reminds me of Trafford Park in Manchester UK just that everything is a bit bigger. It developed next to to the ship canal and certainly is an unpleasant as Elk Grove
Another great video by Thom. As a fellow commuter, may I ask how long your whole commute was on average (including the L and the bus)? Also, the suicide prevention sign at the L-station makes me kind of sad. Sad that something like this is needed. But I am also glad that they put it there. If one person chooses to follow it, it was worth the expense.
My commute could be anywhere from 1:40 to over 2:00 depending on traffic and transfers and just how terrible the blue line generally was. So glad that job is behind me, for so many reasons.
I wonder if that was a mixed freight train with the tipper wagon and behind it oils(probably).Or possibly the tipper wagon was just acting as a barrier vehicle between the fuel wagons and the locomotives?
This was a great video about PACE!!! Living in the Suburbs its definitely a struggle understanding the routing on the PACE routes compared to CTA. I would recommend giving a go at PACE Route 834 one of these days, it is one of the longest routes in our network connecting Joliet and Lombard. I feel that could be a study looking into! Keep up the work 👍
Yeah that's an old bus route probably created in the late seventies. And you know when a lot of the industrial places were moving out into the suburbs they chose elk Grove village. That's kind of a decent synopsis for that bus route. It said industrial feeder bus route. And there used to be some good places along there. If you get off the bus at Higgins and Mannheim there's might be some hotels around there still. I haven't been out in that neighborhood in 20 years or more.
Honestly though, who DOES live in Rosemont? The fact that they can have also enough people to facilitate one of the longest running political dynasties in the country is mind-boggling too. The village is an illusion, truly one of the seven wonders of Chicagoland
Brad Stephens, not just your village president but also your state house representative in Springfield, too! I too knew someone who lived in Rosemont and as teens when we went to visit we had to be admitted through the gates. More often than not, we also had a police officer behind us to make sure we were going to our destination and only to our destination. Also there was a rumor that the one time someone even tried to challenge Donald Stephens for village president, the village discontinued the trash pickup to their house.
theres apartments behind the McDonalds, Small Cheval, Taco Bell area. theres a couple gated communities there also down higgins after you go under the highway overpass and right before you reach Mannheim.
Illinois used to have a law that any bus carrying passengers was required to stop at a rail crossing, apply brakes, with the driver opening the doors to look and listen before proceeding. (It got modified so the doors don't need to open a few years ago.) One wonders whether 223 drivers actually had to go through all this throughout the business park every block. Ironically, does that bus even reach the residential areas of Elk Grove? Not to my recollection. Or only skirting. I did once hear that the railroad also offerred garbage service to these businesses. As for Rosemont residential, it's mostly a gated community off Higgins. Do you recall all the holiday decorations in one area, right by the interstate viaduct? That's where the entrance is. I believe there are also some apartments near the Allstate Arena which might be in Rosemont. There's a weird hotel situation in the area off Touhy, where one hotel is in Rosemont (with a certain tax structure) and the one right next to it is in Desplaines.
Yes, the holiday decorations were huge! Probably visible from space lol. And no, it doesn’t serve Elk Grove residential. Would be nice to have a bus stopping at Tensuke Market.
Elk Grove Village was technically the City of Elk Grove several years ago, had something to do with the population per square mile. They changed it back due to public outcry. I grew up in Rolling Meadows, which is also a city… of 25k people.
Before pace Bus it was Nortran. That was before pace. Pace was created in about 1983? And before that each region of the suburban Chicago had its own transit system. For example that name I just mentioned was the North and Northwest suburbs. What covered the western suburbs was called West Townes and what covered the south suburbs is called South suburban safeway. The southwest suburbs was I believe called suburban transit? So Pace was kind of a further consolidation of all of these different regions. You can even look up one that was around the Wilmette area called wheel bus w i l b u s
Lots of Luke’s… so many thoughts I don’t know where to begin, but you operate similar to myself and keeping lots of video to use from an archive built up over years. That is certainly a crazy bus route, and really should be split into two separate bus numbers.
@@Thom-TRA that greasy spoon! I have a friend who works at the Sears Tower (Willis) and ate there a lot, and I joined him once and it was cool! Covid changed a lot and he works from home mostly, but hopefully Luke’s lives on!
The Busse family are some of the founders of mount prospect Illinois. I grew up with one of the descendants who is also named Busse. As for Pace… they are one of the more backwards companies out there.
As someone who lives within the Chicago suburbs I can confirm Pace overall ranges from confusing to frustrating lol. That said I never really knew about just how confusing it could get. As you said, the 223 definitely could benefit out of just renumbering one of the routes, which I imagine would make reading and following the schedule much, much easier. Taking buses will always be fun but with Pace it can be a little frustrating because of the long wait times and routes. I've taken several routes and almost always a car is far faster, which is obvious for suburban areas, but still. In some cases a bike can be faster, believe it or not! (At least where I am) Also, the route's endpoint at Tower and Busse sits right alongside the 390 expressway, which happens to have a bit of a bike path! You were actually on it during some of the footage. It's not exactly the best, because it's not really continuous and just cuts in and out of existence, not to mention you have to cross very large roads such as Busse (which is literally a highway). That said on weekends and afternoons it's a nice place to ride recreationally, because the offices will be closed, so barely any cars in the way, and 390 itself won't be busy at all. In fact, I don't know if it's that busy to begin with. Anyhow, great video! I really enjoy learning about Chicagoland's transit, just as I do taking it.
Yeah I remember saying that bus route when I moved to Chicago back in like 1991. I thought that bus route looks so confusing back then. Who would have thought in October of 1994 through 2001 that I would be riding that bus. I used to get off the bus at Wolf road and Touhy avenue. And I would cross the street and go to the United airlines reservation office. And you know basically confusing
I once worked by the 223 and yeah you're right about the route, it is VERY confusing. Thank goodness I moved jobs. Also, you should check out a very strange route, 385 (starts at Midway)
In Denver, we have the 83D and 83L, Which both have the same start and end points, but different routes in the middle. The 83L also has a longer span of service. Maybe PACE could do something similar?
Ahh yes the 223, hated taking this route to the DMV to get my CDL Permit, multiple trips there weren't pleasant especially when the DMV was located along a portion of the route that see's service once every 4 hours. Thankfully, 5 years later I'm a CTA bus operator and can travel more free in the comfort of my own car to Elk Grove comfortably. PACE really should make the 223 into two separate routes that run more frequently or at the very least run during peak times of the day.
The MBTA's route 4 is almost as confusing. It's a giant figure 8 around Downtown Boston, the North End, and the Seaport District, and the direction it takes around the figure 8 depends on the time of day. Then there's the former route 20 that was basically a giant loop. Buses alternated between clockwise and counter clockwise. Obviously, it was stupidly confusing. In the mid 2000s, they smartly renumbered the clockwise loop as the 201 and the counter clockwise loop as the 202.
For the past couple of years, the *streetcar* network in Toronto has been really confusing. That's due in no small part to the sheer frequency of the (often massive) changes (seemingly every other board period); but it's also due to the communication, or lack therof, about these changes. Frankly, the only reason I have any semblance of an idea about where streetcars will go, where they w9n't go, and where you have to transfer to a replacement bus, is because I read an unofficial blog. (Shoutout to Steve Munro, you are the reason I don't get lost in my own city!)
I was caught out because a train went the opposite way to expected (I was about to be charged but let off because the conductor took pity and I was misrouted).
There was an All-State arena bus that ran during concerts and what I took for WWE shows. They discontinued after the pandemic and driver shortage, but wonder if they operate it now?
To my knowledge, no. The 222 (as it came to be called) has been permanently discontinued. I believe Allstate Arena subsidized it. Now, Rosemont subsidizes another (free) shuttle bus from the transit center through the entertainment, shopping, and convention centers (with a stop thrown in for minor league baseball games when the team is playing.) The Allstate Arena bus is missed, considering it had direct service and the nearby 250 is now very limited, with the stadium's street stop at Lunt being skipped over by Dempster Pulse buses.
This video was really awesome, and greatly researched, but it makes me even more thankful that I have a 4 minute walk to work in the city of Chicago!!!🎉
@@Thom-TRA I can’t imagine having the commute you describe in this video! And also sorry it was so confusing and bleak out there. And the littering others did! 😔
Touhy is supposed to get a new bridge over that rail crossing as part of the I-490 project (will have an interchange as well). I used to live on the NW side of Des Plaines from 2017-2021 and I do not miss that crossing
Thank you for this fascinating video. The Pace bus service seems pretty comprehensive, but as you say Route 223 is rather confusing ! I note that all the buses you showed were simple diesel powered vehicles. Don’t Pace have any Hybrid or Electric buses these days ? I seem to recall that Rosemont is a station on the Milwaukee Central route that eventually terminates at Antioch. I tried - in vain, to see some sightings of that Route ! Many thanks.
At 5:24 we drive under a viaduct carrying that Metra line! Unfortunately while there are two Rosemont stations, they are nowhere near each other. The quickest way to get from the Blue Line to Metra’s North Central Service would be to take a nonstop bus from Rosemont to the O’Hare Multimodal Station.
@@Thom-TRA most routes only have A and B though but we have a few that have multiple branches. Mostly it's because they have the same start point but can loop somewhere else but more or less follow the same route.
@@Thom-TRA mostly just the buses but one of our streetcar or tram routes has an A and B route because of how long it is and it was often delayed due to traffic.
@@Thom-TRA Again, the woods, part of the County forest preserve system, was named for the family. Note the herd of Elk in the Busse Woods Preserve, hence Elk Grove. It's been too many years, but I believe the Busse farm was north of Elk Grove (Higgins Road), and west of Hwy 83 (Busse Road).
Yes I have fond memories of the Pace bus 223. I remember from about October of 1994 to about November of 2001 I wrote that bus every day to and from work. I used to work at the United airlines reservation center on Touhy avenue a little bit Easter wolf road. And I remember remember riding the first bus which was at 4:59 a.m. on Monday through friday. Not 5:00 a.m. but 4:59 a.m. and then I remember writing a lot of those buses in the 6:00 hour and the 5:00 hour in the morning and they would be so packed you had to miss the bus so you could hopefully get on the next bus. And that bus would be so proud of you. I mean it was so packed it was dangerous. And paste did not have articulated buses which I wish they would have for that route. But no I remember that bus man I have fun memories of that bus. And that boss used to run every few minutes in the morning and then every few minutes in the afternoon going back towards rosemont. So a lot of people did ride that bus. Matter of fact I was instrumental in getting that bus to run later on Saturday evenings as far as two and wolf and on Sundays as far as two and wolf. Do we have a new Android wolf
“Village of…” is because of how the city is incorporated. Therefore you have the Village of Palatine, but the City of Rolling Meadows. 6:02 and that’s the Rosemont Horizon. 😜
@@Thom-TRAThe state of Illinois defines a city as having a minimum of 2500 people. They are governed by a mayor and at minimum 6 alderpersons. Villages population requirements vary by county population (according to Wikipedia) and they are governed by a president (can be called mayor) and exactly six trustees. Cities also can provide a few more services themselves. Otherwise how they operate are exactly the same. In fact there is very little difference. The state also has towns( different from townships) that provide the services of both a city/village and a township. This was an option prior to 1867 and towns were grandfathered in with new Illinois constitutions.
Hey was wondering if you've thought about taking the Chicago L challenge? The Chicago L challenge is when you have to visit every L station in the fastest time possible. And you can only use public transportation in order to complete the task. The current record is: 8hrs 56mins 33secs It would be interesting to see how good you do. Please do a video on this one, i'm sure that it'll be fund to see!!
"so where the rails go, the trains go - usually" (shows northfolk southern clip) 🤣
savage
No lies detected
I gotta say as a northeast Ohioan, all the yummy benzenes Norfolk Southern leaked were very good. I have 4 arms now and can do double the foaming!
So sad I spoiled the surprise to myself by going to the comment section xD
21:11 owo
Rail lines all meet in Chicago, an 1800s thing that never changed.
20:03 that bus driver waves at the camera. Love that!
Haha I never even noticed that!
I grew up in Chicago and moved away after school. I miss the Chicago street grid and the simplicity of Chicago's bus routes so much. If you know how to walk somewhere or drive somewhere in Chicago, you automatically know how to take the bus there. This is so powerful, and so rare outside of Chicago.
I had a similar experience with the Vegas bus system. It's car centric as hell, but the buses "take advantage" of that grid of stroads with good coverage across the metro area too. Didn't realize Chicago buses followed that system too.
Being new to Chicago, in 2004, I was extremely surprised how easy CTA was to use.
The Bus 69 here used to have 7 routes depending on time of day and day of the week it would take one of them. It was confusing and the display on the outside would only show the destination. The line passes through 2 different states with different holidays and sometimes none had an idea what route to take not even the driver. On a day where one state had an holiday and the other didn’t the driver made up a 8th route stoping at all stops from both other routes. One route used to have 5 deviations and two 3 point turns. The bus would change from the 69 to the 68 at one end of the line. The 68 had two routes of it’s own so there was a possibility of 14 different routings.
There used to be a bus 69 in Chicago and it ran down Cumberland street and I thought that was funny
@@Thom-TRA There used to be a tram in my city that run around a loop differed ways depending on the time of day, and everyone loved it as soon as they changed people stopped using it.
Just rename them to 137, 138, 145, 303, 304, 419, 420
Or 69A - G
Finally, somebody who talks about the challenges of taking buses. When I take the train, I lead the way, but I have only managed taking a bus when I let somebody else lead the way.
From what I understand, in Illinois, calling a municipality a 'village' or a 'city' or a 'town' is based on population and then whether it is automatically home rule or is voted on. Also, cities and towns typically have mayors while villages have managers. Even then, there may be other factors. But this is Illinois and nothing is simple and straightforward.
Interesting, thanks for the explanation
@@Thom-TRA Villages can also have mayors. Cities have alderman while villages have trustees. Rolling Meadows has aldermen, while Hoffman Estates has a board of trustees. Villages usually have a mayor and manager.
@@canyonoverlook9937 Thanks for the input.
Village is supposed to have a village president instead of a mayor that people elect. Its illinois. Too many different government subdivisions.
"this is Illinois and nothing is simple and straightforward". The grid system is so simple and the land is so flat, they had to make *something* complex 😂
I just happened to try out Route 626 last week. It is indeed a confusing route.
It's the only taking I-94 North, and the two directions are completely different. There's only 3 buses in the peak direction, and 8 or so in the opposite one every half-day.
The peak direction is fast and almost non-stop, the other one is almost twice as long. The two directions only meet briefly close to the Buffalo Grove end, in the middle of an office and industrial park.
We were 7 passengers on the bus going North in the afternoon, and only 2 in the opposite one, myself included.
I think it could be much more successful if it had a clear itinerary and schedule, and served population centers rather than office parks
It is an absolutely absurd schedule and I just can’t understand why they did it
Bussy road is probably one of the best Street names
It’s up there. Or should I say down there…
@@Thom-TRA There's a street called Fry St somewhere in Chicago and I also find it funny and that's not the only funny street name in Chicago or in the suburbs
A half glass half full type view - it seems it'd be good to group all the industry in one area so it's not interspersed in communities as it does tend to necessitate the heavy roads & rail. And that industry is essential to our daily life.
So in that sense there's a good reason for that area to exist.
Good video, as a Chicagoan I know that basically all of the pace buses are confusing. :) also the Allstate area is also for the minor league hockey team the Chicago wolves.
I still have a Chicago wolves cup that I bought at the arena. Use it to water our plants!
I remember when it was called the Rosemont Horizon. Also the speculation about why the roof collapsed during construction. Was it a low flying aircraft? There is a runway approach that is low over the arena. Was it a gust of wind? Or was it poor planning and 53 percent of the required bolts not being installed? Then a year later the concrete stands under construction collapsed bringing 34 tons of concrete to the ground. Hopefully it was reconstructed properly.
@@Thom-TRA ha I do too!
Most people that catch Pace bus route 223 are people who works out in Elk Grove Village and it's very boring out there.
As a Chicagoan i approved this
Wow Thom, this was very typical of your previous videos and measuring up to your high standards; It was, as usual, interesting and informative with lots of graphics to help clarify your dialogue. The video brought back memories of the time I grew up in Palatine, Illinois and took the bus, as a change of pace, to downtown Chicago to the old bus station on Lake Street. I loved the slower pace of the trip, since I was going to Chicago to visit my grandparents. I then caught the Ravenswood L to Diversey, where both of my Omas lived within a couple blocks from the Diversey L station. Usually I took the C&NW from Palatine to the C&NW terminal on Canal Street and then walked to the Adams and Wabash L station. Incidentally the commuter bus line wasn't called PACE, and the trip cost less than the train. Also at that time the C&NW livery was green and yellow, and I believe that the C&NW Railroad was the first to use the double deck cars with the control cab in the rear car when heading out of Chicago. Thanks for sharing your feelings about the industrial glut and environmental "smut" of that area along your previous trips to work when you lived in Chicago.
I’ve always thought Palatine was such a cool name for a place.
Yes, you’re right, C&NW was the first to use cab gallery cars!
I remember that bus! The last private bus company on that line was called United Motor Coach. They ran yellow and blue buses. The line on Northwest Highway ran all the way from the Wisconsin state line (a highway intersection called Big Foot Prairie) in to Jefferson Park neighborhood in Chicago, where it turned onto Foster Avenue to Lake Shore Drive, then down Michigan Avenue. The bus got onto the lower level of Wacker Drive to get into the Greyhound Bus station. It was like the bus went into its own subway! That was only one of the routes United Motor Coach ran. Most of them were in Des Plaines where they ran local lines as well.
When you got on the United Motor Coach bus and paid your fare, the driver gave you a little cardboard ticket called a hat check with the name of your destination zone printed on it. As a teenager, I often rode the bus from Arlington Heights to Skokie, where I got on the Skokie Swift L. From Arlington Heights to Skokie was an odd fare and the drivers never could remember how much it was supposed to be. As a result, I don't think I ever paid the same fare twice!
One year, United Motor Coach bought some used buses from somewhere in the South. Back then, bus service in the South was segregated. Black people had to get on in the front of the bus, pay their fare, then get off the bus and go get on at the back door and sit in the back of the bus (if there were any seats). As a result, the back door on those buses was operated by a control on the driver's dash board instead of automatically by the treadle pad by the back door. A driver explained all this to me.
@@Thom-TRA Palatine got its name because many of the early settlers came from the Rhineland Palatinate in Germany. There was some quaint German-style architecture in downtown Palatine when I was a kid.
Palatine had an interurban line that ran north from town to Camp Reinberg that had been an army base during World War I. The interurban line was single tracked. They never electrified it so it ran a gasoline-powered car. When the war ended and Camp Reinberg closed, the interurban closed too.
Chicagoan here. Village are pretty much when town becomes a town. If one part becomes populated enough (typically unincorporated parts of already exciting village) they can make their own village. Not as easy as that obviously. Need to establish a city consul and some other paperwork to apply but that’s why there’s a lot of villages around the chi subs. I’ll link the Illinois home rule page below this if you want to learn more. 4:44
familiar with this bus and used to work in Rosemont for approx 10 years..... there's residental areas outside of the downtown area. There's a reason why it's called PACE lol. Elk Grove sucks because it's industrial so literally there's no place to really hang out to wait for the bus especially in inclement weather. Also noticed the trash too
Yeah the people on the 223 can be quite antisocial
The residential area of Rosemont is behind the gated entrance on the south side of Higgins just west of the I-90 Devon tollway entrance.
Just to add to the confusion, south of the airport, south of Irving Park Road, Busse Highway is called Kingery Road. Still the same Road Route number (#83), but different suburbs like having their own name for a road. And yes, of the many things that drive me crazy about Chicago transportation is putting advertisements covering the windows. It's like looking through a microwave oven door. Thanks for the video.
Pat, in Chicago
Yep, Higgins turns into Lee turns into Touhy turns into Higgins again. I believe Elmhurst also changes its name south of 390.
When a bus is covered with an advertisement over the windows and doors, sometimes the advertisement shades the bus passengers from the direct sunlight which is good so you don't get blinded as much. It's good to protect your eyes from direct light or you could go blind.
@@jefferypardue7509 ah yes. Let’s block every window in the world with ads. Then no one will ever go blind.
@@Thom-TRAthats due to the original higgins road being taken over by the airport. You can see some remaining stubs near touhy and elmhurst road.
The road that divides my town from the neighboring town has a different name on each side, then another name outside of the two towns.
I grew up in Berwyn, Illinois. I am old enough (60) to be pre-RTA. I was 10 when the RTA came into being. While not complicated, the best and most circuitous route was the West Towns Route 305. It may have been the longest. It ran from the Morton Community College Campus, essentially 39th/Laramie, north to Roosevelt, west to Desplaines, north to Madison, east to Harlem, north to Chicago and East to Austin. It was a great route to go anywhere in North Berwyn and Oak Park. Since I left Berwyn in 1983, the RTA/Pace has shortened the route and divided the pieces of the original route among other routes, eliminating the Chicago Ave, portion between Harlem and Chicago, severing an important connection between Oak Park and Chicago. Except for Chicago Ave., the route pieces Where a rider once was able to get to multiple locations on a single route, one must transfer at least one and maybe twice to get to the same locations. I wish I had encountered you on one of your trips. I know a great deal about the history of transit in the Chicago area and why routes go where they do.
I can very much relate to the head-spinning nature of PACE routes at times. Can I also say how impressive it is how much footage you take! Very comprehensive and relevant. Makes for a much more informative watch, thanks! Same goes for the maps
Thanks!!
When I was a kid in the late 70s I took the Pace bus from Palatine to Woodfied a few times for fun. It was a school bus at the time. It would also stop at Harper College and Motorola Headquarters along with stopping on demand.
A school bus as in yellow with a stop sign?
@@Thom-TRA Yes, a regular school bus.
In Seattle, there used to have a bunch of routes from 171 to 179 that run from downtown to Federal Way, with most of them running park hours only. Today, only 177 remained, 174 turned into RapidRide A in 2009, 178 and 179 are still suspended since COVID. The rest are deleted.
Also, in Hong Kong, ex-NWFB, now CTB 14 from Sai Wan Ho to Stanley has not 1, not 2, but 6 routings in Stanley, and 5 going back. I recently did this route on this game called City Bus Manager and took me 2 hours to get all scheduled right 😅
The 174 brought good memories of my visits to Seattle. One of the highlights was the Chinese restaurant in Tukwila
Going back to when you said, you knew someone who was born and raised in Rosemont; Rosemont does have a population of about 4,000. It’s just a small area sandwiched between the Metra NCS tracks near O’Hare Transfer station and I-90. Not a lot of people know about it and it’s easy to miss since it’s such a small portion of Rosemont
So odd hearing my old bus routes in a vid. Like a blast from the past.
Would you agree that it’s a confusing route for first timers?
@@Thom-TRAI used to take that route from Elk Grove to the airport regularly for work. It's definitely confusing for newer commuters, and more designed for Mon-Fri workers that don't work late. There's been a couple times where I had to either walk home or call a cab after getting stuck at work after the last bus.
I never been on this bus route but it took me some time to know what it meant and what direction it’s going. I like how one of them travels through that industrial park with a bunch of railroad crossings. Somewhere in that area there was a derailment of one of the hopper cars that it crashed into a building next to it. It only looked like there was damage on the outside and it happened I believe back in the fall. It should’ve been moving at a slow speed which it usually would.
Hi Thom. The CUE Bus in Fairfax, VA used to confuse me; especially when I was a student at George Mason University 30 years ago. The routes are Gold 1, Gold 2, Green 1 and Green 2. The routes loop; beginning and ending at the Vienna Metrorail station. The 1 busses run in a clockwise loop and the 2 busses run in a counterclockwise loop. If I need to take a CUE, I can look at the schedule and routes using my mobile device. 30 years ago, you just had to remember what bus ran in which direction. I would always forget.
Yeah that is confusing! I haven’t been on the cue bus yet, I’m planning to though.
An interesting fact of the route, you would pass on Touhy near O'Hare was the crash site of American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979
Oof. Tragic.
Not all suburbs are villages. Villages tend to be part of townships which help orchestrate municipal services like water and sometimes waste removal and sewers. Some larger suburbs like Des Plaines are cities.
As someone who lives on the very edge of the business park, it's incredibly frustrating here. During the winter, there's an obnoxious whining sound that comes out of a building by the post office. In EGV, the only real thing to do here is leave. Ironically, the summer events are shockingly good, as we had The Beach Boys (or whoever's left of Mike Love's mercs) with John Stamos as well as Neon Trees do summer concerts. Couple this with the neighboring town of Schaumburg housing the largest consolidated RETAIL area with Woodfield and you get just this weird suburban hellscape. And I grew up in Wood Dale, whose only real claim to fame is that it built a bridge that didn't connect to anything for almost a decade. That said, Rosemont station does connect to a TON of great show venues via the Blue Line.
You've also got Busse Woods on the other side of a major residential block, which is a gorgeous, massive forest preserve with an 11 mile trail and multiple attractions. EGV also makes a killing due to the corporate tax and our local amenities are absolutely fantastic. Great local gym, tons of parks, plenty of civic events if you're into that sort of thing... But like I said, if you're not actively bringing up a family, and you're seeking some form of entertainment, you're gonna have to get out of the village.
Also, as it's been communicated in other comments: the village vs. city has a lot to do with how the town's administrative structure is set up. Wood Dale is a city, but Elk Grove and Bensenville are villages. Wood Dale has wards led aldermen in addition to city council, Bensenville and EG have boards of trustees.
Great video from a lifelong local.
I’ve driven around that industrial park many times looking at the various railroad crossings and hoping to catch a train in action. Every time I see this area, I wish all the warehouses and buildings had solar panels covering the roofs. We need more solar, and warehouse roofs are perfect, non obtrusive places to put it.
I took a video of the locomotive shunting once but I couldn’t find the file anymore.
And amen to the solar thing ☀️☀️
I've noticed some warehouses near me have solar panels on the roofs. I hope more do it.
The rail setup in that area is pretty genius to support sidings for the warehouses.
I remember having a couple of Ampex pre-recorded cassette tapes in the late 1960’s manufactured in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
I agree with you Thom! Pace needs to make passenger information better or just renumder these route variants. In Moscow we had another problem with trams...
People in this city usually read the number of route, but not the terminal on the destination sign, so short turns for the tram routes had numbers "35K", "43K" etc. K - means "korotkiy" (or "short" in English). But after route number reforms they ripped out "K" letter for short turns and just changed terminal names on destination signs. As a result people became confused when tram had number 35 or 43, but made short deviations.
Many people had written complaints about this reform, but government made one more reform and now we have for example 47 tram route and its short turn version - 49. It is also inconvenient because you need remember two route numbers.
It is interesting that not all tram short-turns have their own numbers, so passengers should be careful and watch the terminal destination sign, but sometimes occasions take place... because of poor information policy.
Often trams in Moscow follow from/to depot throught lines of other routes with passengers. For example in place where I live we have regular tram routes: "A", "12", "38" and "43". Thanks for depot runs this stop is also served by "1a", 3a", "16a", "26a", "47a" and "49a" routes. People just don't understand what are these routes and where do they go...
As a result, passengers simply ignore them, although many people use the tram to travel 3-5 stops, so these routes would be okay for people or even more optimal because they provides direct service. In Moscow when you have no transfers - you have no extra pay.
It is necessary to improve the information for passengers - place it on the website and stops. There are needed schemes of these depot-routes and schedules. Because now literally tram fans or tram-department employees know about these "secret" tram routes.
Interesting that short is “korotkiy” in Russian. It’s “kort” in Dutch!
@@Thom-TRA Russian and Dutch are Indo-European languages, so people who speak these languages can understand some of the most common words, for example the words: Sun, Mother, Sister, Brother, Water, Moon, Short and some others :)
As a child, I studied Slavic languages, as well as English, and now I’m studying Spanish. Also, as a child, I invented languages myself, and I also noted with curiosity the similarities between different languages, including Germanic ones - English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Icelandic and others.
"Basic words” have the same root in Indo-European languages. Plus there is a certain amount of historical borrowing between languages - for example, in Ukrainian word "electric current" is "струм" (strum) - it is similar to German word "Strom", so this is borrowing. The same situation with word Sputnik in English, it is borrowing from Russian - Спутник (Sputnik). Latin word "Caesar" was borrowed in German as "Kaiser" and in Russian as "Царь" (Tsar).
But many other words, which are not "basic" became different in Indo-European languages, that is why languages are further divided into language families: Slavic, Germanic, Romance, and these families also have an internal division among themselves.
For example - word "flow" in Slavic languages and in Gelmanic languages has a different root. And when Englishman or American say "flow", it is understandable for German guy who say "fließen" (flissen) or "strom" (as I remember Dutch people use word "stroom" also), or for Dane - "flyde" (floo), even for people from Iceland where they say "flæði" (Flaithi)...
But for Slavic people - "flow" or the same words are not understandable, because we use: Течение (Techenie)(Russian), Течiя (Techia)(Ukrainian), Przepływ (Pzhepliiv)(Polish) (it is still can be understandable for russian, ukrainian and belorussian, because we have word "плавать" (plavat')(swim) and word prefix "пере-" (pere-)(re-), so different meanings and slightly different sounds, but overall still okay), Tok (Czech), Проток/Protok (Serbian), Teći (Techi) (Croatian).
Sorry for this very long linguistic comment. While I was writing it on the subway, I didn’t think it would be so long. I hope it was interesting and informative for you!
I LOVE these types of videos. As a lifelong chicago resident ive been through so many areas of chicago and learned a lot of neat little things. I have half a mind to make my own videos on chicago but idk about what lol.
Anyway. To see someone making a video of one specific bus route is honestly really great. Good work. Hope to see more atuff like this.
There are definitely more in the works! Check out my many other Chicago videos while you’re waiting!
In Roanoke, VA, every route has two numbers. Outbound buses have odd numbers and inbound buses have even numbers.
That is fascinating. Going to look it up right now.
The combo route CTA/Pace 17/310/317 was a "branching routes" of the CTA 17 - This was because the 17 was supposed to be terminated but wasn't as it was the "required" replacement of the demolished 'L' line (before CTA) to service Westchester.
Rosemont also serves a significant office park w/ many offices offering shuttles to/from the L.
There's a significant entertainment district, and a lot of people stay there when visiting Chicago.
(Also, most people in Rosemont live off Higgins btwn Manheim & River or over by Allstate.)
The 626 is primarily "reverse commute" service out to Lincolnshire in the morning and back in the PM rush. The peak direction service is an operational afterthought. I used to take it to the end of the line every day, which happened to be in front of my office.
Operational afterthought should be Pace’s corporate slogan
Used to take the 223 to work for years. Getting back to Rosemont was a pain. If you missed one bus it was 30 mins to the next one. They must have changed it because when I rode there was only one route.
Getting back was way worse, you’re right
6:17 yes, Pepperidge Farm. Known supplier of airline parts. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Goldfish are essential
Many buses in NYC have this split route approach and are even more confusing. The Q1 for example has two branches which each end at a different place. However, there is nothing to distinguish them, at the bus stop, only on the bus itself, which can sometimes have broken screens. If you are in NYC you should take the B39 which is really interesting. It only runs because there is no elevators at Marcy Av, so mostly disabled/old people use it. It runs every 30 minutes for most of the day.
I so much LOVED watching this video. I have lived on the border of IL/WI for the past 20 years, but prior to that I lived in Edgewater and Evanston. I did not own a car so the CTA, Metra and PACE were my primary source of transportation for 30+ years. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, I lived and "died" by the CTA/PACE/Metra. I became such a connoisseur that friends, family and complete strangers would seek me out for information. I had that swager of a seasoned public transportation commuter. This was the years before cell phones and then later all these great Apps people now take for granted were not yet on the scene. I sometimes miss those days, and now feel like an alien from another planet on the rare occasions I take public transportation to/from Chicago. Thank you for helping remember some of my adventures; especially, on those brutal winters.
I’m so glad this brought up memories! Thanks for leaving such a sweet comment
Here in the UK, these seperate bus services would be numbered 223, 223A and X223 (or 223E, 222W & 223X), not sure why they didn't add a suffix to the route number or apply a completely different route number for the deviations.
That map also looks a bit confusing, not sure why they didn't change the colour for the 223E, 223W & 223X or use a different shade of black which is what is done here in London.
In Switzerland you can have a Bus line with 7 or 8 different routes and the bus has the same number and destination. The only way to tell which route the bus will take is by looking at the geometric shape behind the time of the bus on the timetable and then looking on the route table which stops the shape will do. This confusing mess is only done by the sate sponsored Postauto buses almost all other companies will use different route numbers.
This reminds me of a bus route over here in the UK, it's the 229 bus route in Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeare's hometown) where the destination changes depending on what time of day it is. In the morning there's one trip from Ullenhall and one from Snitterfield (both nearby villages) into Stratford. There are 3 circular trips on it during the day which serve the local villages to the north of the town. Around 4pm there is a trip that goes from Stratford back to Ullenhall, but doesn't return. At 6:25pm there is a trip on the route that goes somewhere completely different, it goes to Redditch which is almost 20 miles away from Stratford and that's the last trip of the day. I rode the last trip to Redditch once and I really enjoyed it! It's my first time on this channel, loved the video and I've subscribed.
Those are all delightfully silly place names too!
@@Thom-TRA I suppose they are to someone who’s not from the UK 🤣
9:04 I can. I grew up in Palatine. But my dad worked in one of those in Bensenville for a while.
Which is your favorite bus fleet in Chicago? I have lived in Chicago for two years and I loved the New Flyer D40LF, DE60LF and DE60LFR. Nova buses are okay, I just found them very noisy. Not a big fan of Pace fleet.
Hmm, I have to say I really love the colors of the Proterra battery electric buses. All buses should be that shade of blue.
Don’t forget the USPS processing facility on Busee and Mark street. I work there and we call the facility “Busse” even tho it’s called Chicago Metro Surface hub
I'm all too familiar with riding circuitous pace routes. My local routes use the older busses (2006 or so), that means the diesel fumes can get to ya if you sit too close to the back for too long. I hope those commutes weren't too painful. Thanks for the video!
Ugh that would make me nauseous
If you do not research Pace before you travel, you will end up in another country. 😭😭😭
Yes -- I've been on this bus and you're at the mercy of scheduling - which showed me no mercy that day; one of the hottest days this year (took it for the first time sometime in July); I had no water left, did not realize that you stand on the same side of the street going back as you did coming (I called RTA twice just to make sure they were telling me the correct way home); and the next bus was 2 hours away -- 2 flipping hours !!!!
It’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m sorry that happened!
@@Thom-TRA HI - been on that Pulse too but that was okay - I only went for 2 stops; Have a nice day and you just got a new subbie!
The village thing is a type of governance. Villages don’t have aldermans. Cities have alderman’s. Towns don’t have townships. So like Cicero is its own township. Evanston was originally supposed to change to a town when they got rid of the township but I think they stuck as a city
The Busse family is Mt. Prospect's most famous family, being there since 1848. The family is responsible for many businesses throughout the years.
Their name is funny
Busse named after William Busse (1864-1955), who was a Cook County Commissioner. Also the 1st mayor of Mount Prospect among other things.
Not sure why they're so popular here, but villages are actually a specific kind of government. Illinois unlike some states does not have a population limit on villages. Because of these two factors Illinois is home to many of the largest villages in the country.
I’ve always just thought it was kind of a marketing thing. Like making them sound more idyllic than they really are.
This was fun. I ride the Pace 223W from home to my job in Elk Grove Village whenever it rains or snows hard. Otherwise, I'm on my bike. Most days I bike south on Western Avenue to the Metra station at Grand, and then take my bike on the train to Wooddale and bike up Wooddale from there. So 8 miles biking and about 40 minutes on the train, or the #81 Lawrence bus, the Blue line L, and the Pace 223W. Either approach takes 90 minutes, good time to write letters or read. Sometimes I have my work laptop with me, too, though I don't work at home very often.
I have joked that Elk Grove Village is not known for its elk or groves; I was surprised to learn that this is the largest business complex in the country. But the massive Busse Woods Forest Preserve is a great place for a long bicycle ride, dense forests, and they feature a herd of elk there too! I biked across Busse Woods late one evening and dodged two possums and a skunk. You won't see them on Touhy Avenue.
Not much else going on in Elk Grove Village, admittedly, I would agree with you on that. But the Pace 223 has served me pretty well. I can take the 223E route if that's what shows up at Rosemont first, I just need to walk farther, west on Devon to Lively from Busse Highway.
I really like my job in Elk Grove Village, and public transit is my life. My wife and I haven't owned a car for nearly 40 years, and I spent many years biking to the Loop for work, about 7.5 miles as opposed to 8 these days. I miss working in the Loop, but I'm happy to have landed my current position after getting laid off in May of 2022.
Community transit of Snohomish county, WA uses the same style buses with the same type of seats but with different colours and patterns on the seats but with the same frame and layouts with the same yellow pull stop cord. Those seats are not very comfortable if you have to sit on them for an hour or so or more. I usually like sitting in the front area where the wheelchair parking is in the front. I noticed that listening to the radio AM FM gets affected by the bus. You should look into community transit route 201/202 which is like this where near 95% of both routes are the same except north of Marysville, WA which means two different bus numbers but end /start in Smokey point wa and Lynnwood wa.
I miss the Orion buses on 223 and all NW routes
Hello from Australia! My partner lives in Chicago, it’s great when you post a Chicago vid because it spruiks my curiosity
Nice! Do you have any upcoming plans to visit?
@@Thom-TRA unfortunately I have too many disabilities to manage the multiple (including 14hr+) flights :( we’re planning for her to come down here next year though
Check out Pace route 354. It’s a circulator route that begins and ends at the Harvey Transportation center and serves Harvey, Dixmoor, Posen, Midlothian, Oak Forest and Markham. What’s weird about it is it’s a dual circulator. One goes clockwise and the other goes counterclockwise.
Interesting. It’s like Pace’s very own Yamanote line.
So being from Ottawa, Canada, we don't really have a grid system for buses to follow, so everything's kind of confusing to begin with and the destination signs on buses don't say too much either. For example on Transitways (dedicated bus roads), you may see a bus who's destination is only shown as a few stop further down the Transitway, however what the headsign doesn't show is that the bus breaks out of the Transitway and goes on a whole local routing before jumping back on and terminating 4 Transitway stops down from where you started
We also have tons of modified rush hour service, also during school peaks many routes are truncated to serve specifically a high school in the area... (also they're jam packed with students, barely any standing room)
So yeah, the Transit app is your best friend over here :D
Oof some of that sounds brutal. DC’s map is kind of a mess too, especially once you’re out of the district.
Here in NYC the confusing bus routes is the Bx23, Q10, Q38 and maybe the Q37/B. Some bus routes has 2 different terminals on northern, western, eastern or southern ends such as Q1, Q11/B, Q30, Q36, Q46, B17, B38, B41 Local/Limited & soon to be SBS, B44 Local & SBS, B46 Local & SBS, Bx12 Local & SBS, Bx13, M1, M4. Staten Island is the only boro that doesn't follow how the MTA bus guide between the Local, Limited & Select Bus Service counterparts for example M101 Local/Limited, Bx41 Local/Select Bus Service compare to S44, S46, S48, S51, S59, S61, S62, S74 & S76 Local & their Limited counterparts S90, S94, S96, S98, S89 S81, S91, S92, S84 & S86. The express is also a mess.
The whole place reminds me of Trafford Park in Manchester UK just that everything is a bit bigger. It developed next to to the ship canal and certainly is an unpleasant as Elk Grove
Another great video by Thom. As a fellow commuter, may I ask how long your whole commute was on average (including the L and the bus)?
Also, the suicide prevention sign at the L-station makes me kind of sad. Sad that something like this is needed. But I am also glad that they put it there. If one person chooses to follow it, it was worth the expense.
My commute could be anywhere from 1:40 to over 2:00 depending on traffic and transfers and just how terrible the blue line generally was. So glad that job is behind me, for so many reasons.
I wonder if that was a mixed freight train with the tipper wagon and behind it oils(probably).Or possibly the tipper wagon was just acting as a barrier vehicle between the fuel wagons and the locomotives?
This was a great video about PACE!!! Living in the Suburbs its definitely a struggle understanding the routing on the PACE routes compared to CTA.
I would recommend giving a go at PACE Route 834 one of these days, it is one of the longest routes in our network connecting Joliet and Lombard. I feel that could be a study looking into!
Keep up the work 👍
Thanks for the recommendation!
Yeah that's an old bus route probably created in the late seventies. And you know when a lot of the industrial places were moving out into the suburbs they chose elk Grove village. That's kind of a decent synopsis for that bus route. It said industrial feeder bus route. And there used to be some good places along there. If you get off the bus at Higgins and Mannheim there's might be some hotels around there still. I haven't been out in that neighborhood in 20 years or more.
All of these wide roads are super depressing. Looks awful. Use to hate coming up to these intersections when I went to the suburbs in Chicago.
Yep it’s all car central
Rode my first 30ft Gillig the other day. Weird to be on such a small bus. But still low floor ADA
I like 30 ft buses, they’re cozier inside
Aka smol bus
Honestly though, who DOES live in Rosemont? The fact that they can have also enough people to facilitate one of the longest running political dynasties in the country is mind-boggling too. The village is an illusion, truly one of the seven wonders of Chicagoland
Even the name Rosemont sounds slightly mythical
There is also a census designated area in the Sacramento metro of California known as Rosemont also.
Brad Stephens, not just your village president but also your state house representative in Springfield, too!
I too knew someone who lived in Rosemont and as teens when we went to visit we had to be admitted through the gates. More often than not, we also had a police officer behind us to make sure we were going to our destination and only to our destination.
Also there was a rumor that the one time someone even tried to challenge Donald Stephens for village president, the village discontinued the trash pickup to their house.
theres apartments behind the McDonalds, Small Cheval, Taco Bell area. theres a couple gated communities there also down higgins after you go under the highway overpass and right before you reach Mannheim.
Illinois used to have a law that any bus carrying passengers was required to stop at a rail crossing, apply brakes, with the driver opening the doors to look and listen before proceeding. (It got modified so the doors don't need to open a few years ago.) One wonders whether 223 drivers actually had to go through all this throughout the business park every block.
Ironically, does that bus even reach the residential areas of Elk Grove? Not to my recollection. Or only skirting. I did once hear that the railroad also offerred garbage service to these businesses.
As for Rosemont residential, it's mostly a gated community off Higgins. Do you recall all the holiday decorations in one area, right by the interstate viaduct? That's where the entrance is. I believe there are also some apartments near the Allstate Arena which might be in Rosemont. There's a weird hotel situation in the area off Touhy, where one hotel is in Rosemont (with a certain tax structure) and the one right next to it is in Desplaines.
Yes, the holiday decorations were huge! Probably visible from space lol.
And no, it doesn’t serve Elk Grove residential. Would be nice to have a bus stopping at Tensuke Market.
Elk Grove Village was technically the City of Elk Grove several years ago, had something to do with the population per square mile. They changed it back due to public outcry. I grew up in Rolling Meadows, which is also a city… of 25k people.
I never knew this!
Chicago is just so cool. I enjoy any of your tours of it!
Thanks!
i use to use pace in Gurnee/Grayslake/Round Lake, a drive from Gurnee mills to where i lived was
5:50 call it the Rosemont Horizon.
I think a lot of those were incorporated as villages. I think it has something to do with their charter
Before pace Bus it was Nortran. That was before pace. Pace was created in about 1983? And before that each region of the suburban Chicago had its own transit system. For example that name I just mentioned was the North and Northwest suburbs. What covered the western suburbs was called West Townes and what covered the south suburbs is called South suburban safeway. The southwest suburbs was I believe called suburban transit? So Pace was kind of a further consolidation of all of these different regions. You can even look up one that was around the Wilmette area called wheel bus w i l b u s
Lots of Luke’s… so many thoughts I don’t know where to begin, but you operate similar to myself and keeping lots of video to use from an archive built up over years. That is certainly a crazy bus route, and really should be split into two separate bus numbers.
We should do a Luke reunion someday (at Luke’s downtown)
@@Thom-TRA that greasy spoon! I have a friend who works at the Sears Tower (Willis) and ate there a lot, and I joined him once and it was cool! Covid changed a lot and he works from home mostly, but hopefully Luke’s lives on!
The Busse family are some of the founders of mount prospect Illinois. I grew up with one of the descendants who is also named Busse. As for Pace… they are one of the more backwards companies out there.
I’m curious what makes Pace backwards? I’m not too familiar with their corporate structure.
As someone who lives within the Chicago suburbs I can confirm Pace overall ranges from confusing to frustrating lol. That said I never really knew about just how confusing it could get. As you said, the 223 definitely could benefit out of just renumbering one of the routes, which I imagine would make reading and following the schedule much, much easier. Taking buses will always be fun but with Pace it can be a little frustrating because of the long wait times and routes. I've taken several routes and almost always a car is far faster, which is obvious for suburban areas, but still. In some cases a bike can be faster, believe it or not! (At least where I am)
Also, the route's endpoint at Tower and Busse sits right alongside the 390 expressway, which happens to have a bit of a bike path! You were actually on it during some of the footage. It's not exactly the best, because it's not really continuous and just cuts in and out of existence, not to mention you have to cross very large roads such as Busse (which is literally a highway). That said on weekends and afternoons it's a nice place to ride recreationally, because the offices will be closed, so barely any cars in the way, and 390 itself won't be busy at all. In fact, I don't know if it's that busy to begin with.
Anyhow, great video! I really enjoy learning about Chicagoland's transit, just as I do taking it.
“Bike path” lol
Yeah I remember saying that bus route when I moved to Chicago back in like 1991. I thought that bus route looks so confusing back then. Who would have thought in October of 1994 through 2001 that I would be riding that bus. I used to get off the bus at Wolf road and Touhy avenue. And I would cross the street and go to the United airlines reservation office. And you know basically confusing
should do the 381 there 3:30 - 5:00 PM service gets canceled almost every weekday
I once worked by the 223 and yeah you're right about the route, it is VERY confusing. Thank goodness I moved jobs.
Also, you should check out a very strange route, 385 (starts at Midway)
I’ve been on the 383 but not the 385, what’s special about it?
Update: I just looked it up. Yikes.
I work on PACE buses fixing them. Thanks for highlighting us lol
Thanks for doing your job!
I lived along these lives for years and never once took it.
In Denver, we have the 83D and 83L, Which both have the same start and end points, but different routes in the middle. The 83L also has a longer span of service. Maybe PACE could do something similar?
But that’s like exactly what Pace already does.
At least there is such frequent service outside the city limits, offering a realistic option to driving.
Ahh yes the 223, hated taking this route to the DMV to get my CDL Permit, multiple trips there weren't pleasant especially when the DMV was located along a portion of the route that see's service once every 4 hours. Thankfully, 5 years later I'm a CTA bus operator and can travel more free in the comfort of my own car to Elk Grove comfortably. PACE really should make the 223 into two separate routes that run more frequently or at the very least run during peak times of the day.
The MBTA's route 4 is almost as confusing. It's a giant figure 8 around Downtown Boston, the North End, and the Seaport District, and the direction it takes around the figure 8 depends on the time of day.
Then there's the former route 20 that was basically a giant loop. Buses alternated between clockwise and counter clockwise. Obviously, it was stupidly confusing. In the mid 2000s, they smartly renumbered the clockwise loop as the 201 and the counter clockwise loop as the 202.
I am definitely looking both of these up
That's nice of PACE to do the voice over for their email /s
For the past couple of years, the *streetcar* network in Toronto has been really confusing. That's due in no small part to the sheer frequency of the (often massive) changes (seemingly every other board period); but it's also due to the communication, or lack therof, about these changes.
Frankly, the only reason I have any semblance of an idea about where streetcars will go, where they w9n't go, and where you have to transfer to a replacement bus, is because I read an unofficial blog. (Shoutout to Steve Munro, you are the reason I don't get lost in my own city!)
I’m considering spending a weekend in Toronto in June actually! Haven’t been there since I was 18
I am sure you checked out the 8-car METRA consist behind the building at 700 Golf Ln, Bensenville, IL 60106? it's super close to the end of the route.
Yeah, check the video I uploaded 3 days later
I was caught out because a train went the opposite way to expected (I was about to be charged but let off because the conductor took pity and I was misrouted).
There was an All-State arena bus that ran during concerts and what I took for WWE shows. They discontinued after the pandemic and driver shortage, but wonder if they operate it now?
To my knowledge, no. The 222 (as it came to be called) has been permanently discontinued. I believe Allstate Arena subsidized it. Now, Rosemont subsidizes another (free) shuttle bus from the transit center through the entertainment, shopping, and convention centers (with a stop thrown in for minor league baseball games when the team is playing.) The Allstate Arena bus is missed, considering it had direct service and the nearby 250 is now very limited, with the stadium's street stop at Lunt being skipped over by Dempster Pulse buses.
This video was really awesome, and greatly researched, but it makes me even more thankful that I have a 4 minute walk to work in the city of Chicago!!!🎉
4 minutes , that’s so nice!
@@Thom-TRA I can’t imagine having the commute you describe in this video! And also sorry it was so confusing and bleak out there. And the littering others did! 😔
@@ck4426 I’m very happy to move on from it. We love our life now!
@@Thom-TRA That’s AWESOME!!!
Despite my best efforts, this route would make me feel lugubrious at best.
In DC the N6 is weird how it goes down the same stretch of Mass. Ave twice in the same direction. It does this offshoot through Cathedral Heights.
Yep. I ride that route at least once a week. It’s a combination of the N2 and N4.
Touhy is supposed to get a new bridge over that rail crossing as part of the I-490 project (will have an interchange as well).
I used to live on the NW side of Des Plaines from 2017-2021 and I do not miss that crossing
I didn’t know that, that’ll be good
Public transportation is so cool.
Oh yeah
Thank you for this fascinating video. The Pace bus service seems pretty comprehensive, but as you say Route 223 is rather confusing ! I note that all the buses you showed were simple diesel powered vehicles. Don’t Pace have any Hybrid or Electric buses these days ?
I seem to recall that Rosemont is a station on the Milwaukee Central route that eventually terminates at Antioch. I tried - in vain, to see some sightings of that Route ! Many thanks.
At 5:24 we drive under a viaduct carrying that Metra line!
Unfortunately while there are two Rosemont stations, they are nowhere near each other. The quickest way to get from the Blue Line to Metra’s North Central Service would be to take a nonstop bus from Rosemont to the O’Hare Multimodal Station.
In Toronto we have routes like this but we use A for the main route and and then letters in alphabetical order from that down.
Interesting
@@Thom-TRA most routes only have A and B though but we have a few that have multiple branches. Mostly it's because they have the same start point but can loop somewhere else but more or less follow the same route.
@@ThomasJM is this just the buses or the trams too?
@@Thom-TRA mostly just the buses but one of our streetcar or tram routes has an A and B route because of how long it is and it was often delayed due to traffic.
Busse is the name of an old farm family in the area. I went to high school with Busse guys.
What’s the connection with Busse Woods? Is that their property?
@@Thom-TRA Again, the woods, part of the County forest preserve system, was named for the family. Note the herd of Elk in the Busse Woods Preserve, hence Elk Grove. It's been too many years, but I believe the Busse farm was north of Elk Grove (Higgins Road), and west of Hwy 83 (Busse Road).
Yes I have fond memories of the Pace bus 223. I remember from about October of 1994 to about November of 2001 I wrote that bus every day to and from work. I used to work at the United airlines reservation center on Touhy avenue a little bit Easter wolf road. And I remember remember riding the first bus which was at 4:59 a.m. on Monday through friday. Not 5:00 a.m. but 4:59 a.m. and then I remember writing a lot of those buses in the 6:00 hour and the 5:00 hour in the morning and they would be so packed you had to miss the bus so you could hopefully get on the next bus. And that bus would be so proud of you. I mean it was so packed it was dangerous. And paste did not have articulated buses which I wish they would have for that route. But no I remember that bus man I have fun memories of that bus. And that boss used to run every few minutes in the morning and then every few minutes in the afternoon going back towards rosemont. So a lot of people did ride that bus. Matter of fact I was instrumental in getting that bus to run later on Saturday evenings as far as two and wolf and on Sundays as far as two and wolf. Do we have a new Android wolf
Yeah it gets so crowded! that's why I always made sure to stand at the front of the line
“Village of…” is because of how the city is incorporated. Therefore you have the Village of Palatine, but the City of Rolling Meadows.
6:02 and that’s the Rosemont Horizon. 😜
Interesting. Such an offense to actual villages lol.
@@Thom-TRAThe state of Illinois defines a city as having a minimum of 2500 people. They are governed by a mayor and at minimum 6 alderpersons. Villages population requirements vary by county population (according to Wikipedia) and they are governed by a president (can be called mayor) and exactly six trustees. Cities also can provide a few more services themselves. Otherwise how they operate are exactly the same. In fact there is very little difference. The state also has towns( different from townships) that provide the services of both a city/village and a township. This was an option prior to 1867 and towns were grandfathered in with new Illinois constitutions.
Brilliant video sir!
A video without the daft lyndsey though?
Unfortunately she had her own job to commute to!
Hey was wondering if you've thought about taking the Chicago L challenge?
The Chicago L challenge is when you have to visit every L station in the fastest time possible.
And you can only use public transportation in order to complete the task.
The current record is:
8hrs 56mins 33secs
It would be interesting to see how good you do.
Please do a video on this one, i'm sure that it'll be fund to see!!
I think you should try this!