2002 DuPage Area Transit Plan
An efficient and well-functioning transportation system is crucial to maintaining economic vitality and a high quality of life in the DuPage County area. The DuPage Area Transit Plan originated from the recognition that simply constructing larger roads would not meet the area's future transportation needs.
County and local officials, with continuous input from the public, collaborated to develop a seamless public transportation plan, one that would serve the county’s travel needs. The result is the DuPage Area Transit Plan adopted by the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference and by the DuPage County Board in September of 2002. This plan developed a comprehensive public transit network for DuPage County and established short-term, medium-term, and long-term implementation goals through the year 2020. The DuPage Area Transit Plan represents a new beginning for transit service in DuPage County. The Transit Plan recommends three "layers" of transit service:
- Circulators, local bus services that provide trips within a community or transfer opportunities to other services (major bus routes or Metra trains).
- Connectors, which run north-south or east-west on major arterial streets.
- Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). One of the main elements of the plan is the BRT route identified as the “J” Route that connects the Aurora-Naperville area with Oakbrook, O’Hare International Airport and Schaumburg
In addition, the Transit Plan recommends many transit-supportive features, such as bus shelters, park-and-rides, sidewalks and bicycle facilities, and Transit Oriented Development land use.
2010 DuPage Area Transit Plan Update
In 2008, the DuPage Area Transit Plan Update was commissioned to evaluate the progress of the plan and provide further guidance for the future. Due to federal, state and local funding constraints following the 2008 recession as well as a policy shift away from new service implementation and toward obtaining a state of good repair, The DuPage Area Transit Plan Update is focused on the evaluation of existing transit service in DuPage County and near-term improvements that are already under way. Long-term projects are recognized but are not evaluated due to likely funding constraints- evaluation is thus deferred to the individual project studies.
