Chicago’s Most Confusing Bus
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- Find out which artist I saw perform at Allstate Arena: • Rick Astley - Never Go...
Some bus routes are more complicated than others. But this one is just outright confusing! We’re riding Pace route 223, which is divided into an East Route, West Route, and X Route. Don’t get on the wrong one, you’ll end up on the other side of town!
Oh, and I emailed Pace to ask them why this is like this. Hear their answer towards the end of the video.
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Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:30 3rd Place: CTA 206
1:51 2nd Place: Pace 626
2:12 Rosemont Station
3:18 Boarding the bus, seat check
4:41 Driving through Rosemont
5:40 Allstate Arena, Airport Facilities
6:44 Waiting for a Freight Train
7:42 The Split: Riding the East Route
9:22 The West Route
10:59 What's there to do around Tower & Busse? NOTHING
12:25 British Airways A380
13:10 Inconsistent Frequencies
13:32 Riding the West Route again
14:21 Chicago Junction Railway
15:07 The Confusion and how I would fix it
17:30 Contacting Pace
17:51 Pace Answers
18:58 Special Liveries
20:06 Final Thoughts 
Авто/Мото
"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!
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.
@Thom-TRA
At one time, New Jersey had a road number 69, but after those highway signs were swiped too much the route was changed to 29.
Just rename them to 137, 138, 145, 303, 304, 419, 420
Or 69A - G
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 😂
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 😅
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 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
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
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.
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.
Busse named after William Busse (1864-1955), who was a Cook County Commissioner. Also the 1st mayor of Mount Prospect among other things.
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.
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
Busse road was named after William Busse.
William Busse was probably the most influential person in Mount Prospect’s development. He was responsible for the construction of the Central School, Mount Prospect’s first public school; the founding of the Mount Prospect State Bank, Busse Buick, Busse Biermann Hardware, and the laying of Northwest Highway, the road that put Mount Prospect on the map. William Busse was the first Mayor of Mount Prospect; he was also a Cook County Commissioner and he used his political connections and his business sense to bring a lot of development into Mount Prospect. He was the founder and president of the Mount Prospect State Bank, which was the bank that made most of the loans to the home buyers who built Mount Prospect.
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.
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!
I miss the Orion buses on 223 and all NW routes
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 🤣
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
6:17 yes, Pepperidge Farm. Known supplier of airline parts. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Goldfish are essential
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
9:04 I can. I grew up in Palatine. But my dad worked in one of those in Bensenville for a while.
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
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
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?
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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
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.
should do the 381 there 3:30 - 5:00 PM service gets canceled almost every weekday
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.
Chicago is just so cool. I enjoy any of your tours of it!
Thanks!
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.
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.
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
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
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
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!!!
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
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.
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
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.
I work on PACE buses fixing them. Thanks for highlighting us lol
Thanks for doing your job!
Different routes different numbers, how difficult can it be 😂. Very entertaining video!
Sometimes I think you and I are the smartest people out there 😂
@@Thom-TRA Nederlandse nuchterheid!? 🥸
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.
At least there is such frequent service outside the city limits, offering a realistic option to driving.
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.
It's been so long since I rode on the bus lol. When I was living in Chicago I was commuting to high school by bus sometimes but ever since I got the car, I never did since. I was surprised to see a Pace bus in Buffalo Grove where I live now, and that was after 6 years of living here! xD I kinda miss bus rides, I used ride a bus a lot in Poland before I moved to the US, here, well, it's not the same. Chicago is still kinda good in that matter but suburbs sucks a lot. Still, not even close to what they have in Europe, sorry
Hi, did you work at industrial company in that business park? Also why would you expect a businesd park to be lively ?
Would you like me to answer the obvious question first, or the question where you put words in my mouth?
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.
Interesting video and route
Thanks!
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
Hey can you cover the 834 pace out by Joliet, Lewis University and downers grove?
Maybe, what about that route is interesting?
@@Thom-TRA it is a weird schedule and a weird route.
@@Thom-TRA but you can determine that
Hey Thom I think I’ve already commented about this but could you please review the Amtrak blue water. I’m currently riding the via rail Canadian if you’ve ever done that.
How is the Canadian treating you?
It’s crazy beautiful and the food is phenomenal
You should definitely try
Why is Elk Grove called Elk Grove? There hasn't been any Elk in Illinois in 200 years.
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.
GRAND RAPIDS JUMPSCARE AHHHHH!!! love you route 100 express bus to ferris state
Have you seen my video on it? It’s a little older but still worth the watch
Public transportation is so cool.
Oh yeah
Try getting from Hanshin Nishinomiya to Hankyu Koyoen on Hanshin Bus. Do you take the inside or outside loop? Hehehe
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!
Sad how a lot of the industrial railroad sidings in Elk Grove aren't used anymore. Also, it does look like an incredibly depressing to have worked here. I had to wait at a bus stop for about 2 hours in an area like this due to very poor frequency. Not nice at all.
Many of the sidings are still used, there’s only a few overgrown ones. Down in Bensenville there’s more abandoned ones.
@@Thom-TRA Oh, I really thought a lot of the sidings weren't used anymore. That's cool then, it's a pretty unique industrial area with the sidings.
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
5:36 ah yes "Heavenly Bodies" ;)
I’ve read that to some locals PACE stands for Pretty Awful Civic Endevour.
What are you using to record
A camera
@@Thom-TRA which type
@@danogeto78 iPhone
Brilliant video sir!
A video without the daft lyndsey though?
Unfortunately she had her own job to commute to!
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).
I enjoyed that video👍👍
Bus driver shouts out the rout split? Is there no audio-visual information system to display/announce this to passengers before bus reaches the last common stop?
Nope. Not that anyone would pay attention anyway.
@@Thom-TRA Well, sight impaired would probably do with audio information outside of a bus so they know which service they are getting on, and hearing impaired probably would like to have that information on the screen rather than shouted by driver they can't hear. I'm form 300k city in Poland and it's required in every buse service tender from over a decade. Quite sad really.
Dang how long was your commute then?
Way too long
You should try any of Pace’s Sports Specials or 755 and 855
I don’t think the sports specials have been running since the pandemic
I may need to check this out . I thought since the pandemic is over - the sports specials would resume service . Pace Bus has everything - that’s why i like it better than CTA’s system . Some of the Express routes don’t even travel into Chicago but cross county (I think that’s 888 or 895) . They even have specific routes for shift changes for companies
“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.
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).
You enjoyed the heck out of pronouncing the 'e' in Busse, didn't you? 😂 I was last in Chicago in October 2022 when the Motor Bus Society visited, and our base was a hotel just down River Road so we went thru Rosemont almost daily. I saw and probably photographed that 223. Which reminds me that I'm sitting on a great Jefferson Park terminal video that I'm too lazy to compile and upload 😅
I was a bus operator 20 years ago and had super out there passengers accuse me of changing the sign on purpose because I wasn't the route she needed 🤦♂️ I agree the various branches should just be renumbered for simplicity.
Hey, I’m just staying true to how it’s pronounced!
Oh gods, I feel kind of blessed, knowing that I actually took the correct 223, last time I visited..
Even if Google maps was being a dumdum, and pretty much told me to hop out a good 2 blocks from where I actually needed to be 😅
(and only after having missed the bus back to Rosemont, and having pedaled down the road to the bensonville bus stop, and catching the 223 ,I realized that it actually stopped, like almost in front of where I needed to be 😅
(and then the bus driver proceeded to halt at every railroad crossing, open the doors, and close them again, before pulling up to the next crossing on the industrial park...
..and yeah, I actually had to double check, since the location and numbers sounded familiar..
Aside from feeling like a really odd character; going to the industrial zone, on my bf's bike, because dutch😂
Because Dutch. I felt that deeply.
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!
Wow what an odd route. Are bus routes as confusing in other places in the world where you have lived or traveled? Good one on the Norfolk Southern clip. What a non-place and the stroads are just awful all around. Waiting for the bus must be an awful experience on those stroads with constant loud, pollution spewing traffic.
Some bus routes in Tokyo had multiple branches but nothing too crazy like this
@@Thom-TRA Interesting. Thanks.
3:38 I like to be king of the bus. Very back, middle seat.
I’d like that seat if the bus wasn’t so bumpy. I have a hard time staying in that seat.
The 624 is the most confusing route here with 2 different variations. Could easily be split into 2 or 3 separate routes...and the frequency isn't that great either.
Where are you located again?
Tower & Busse 🤣🤣🤣🤣 HELP
NJ Transit has without doubt THE most confusing bus system out there...
So I’ve heard