Connecting
Communities
DuPage County
February 2, 2002
Although DuPage County is the most built-up county
outside of Cook County, its population still grew
nearly 16% from 1990 to 2000. More than 900,000
people, about a third of all collar-county residents,
live in DuPage County. A once homogeneous popu-
lation is now accented with diverse neighbors.
Transportation options must diversity for meet new
needs. The county was 15% minority in 2000, with
communities like Addison, Oak Brook and Wood
Dale having minority populations of 20-50%.
Residential areas in DuPage County are comple-
mented by industrial centers, office parks, college
and medical centers and shopping complexes.
Proximity to O'Hare Airport has resulted in a very
strong local economy. These assets, combined with
natural landscapes and strong community fabric,
contribute to DuPage County being a highly
desirable place to live for those who hope to find the
perfect balance between the convenience of a major
city and a small-town atmosphere.
DuPage County was originally home to various
Native American communities. Trappers and traders
made up the first wave of Europeans in the early
1800s. Early American settlers came to the area in
the first part of the 1830s and lived near present-day
Naperville, DuPage County's oldest city. The
farmland areas that dominated DuPage County at the
turn of the last century have largely disappeared.
The DuPage River bisects the county with two
branches meandering through communities such as
Warrenville, Downers Grove, Naperville, Wheaton,
Lisle and Glen Ellyn. An extensive bicycle and
pedestrian trail system that stretches through the
county is another asset drawing visitors and residents
to explore the beauty of the area and reminding us
even now of the natural features that drew early
settlers.
Who We Are and How We Travel
We came to the Connecting Communities Summit at the
Wheaton Public Library with many different experiences.
We included members of the disabled community, elected
officials, concerned community members, environmental
activists, senior citizens, and parents of young children.
We are walkers, car drivers, transit riders, and bicyclists.
While some of us have special transportation needs and
concerns, we all seek convenient, safe, and efficient
alternatives to driving that will improve the environment
and overall quality of life for our region.
Our group was slightly more female than male. Our ages
ranged from young adults to the elderly, with most of the
group between the ages of 31 and 50 and a fairly even
breakdown of people in other age groups. The average
household size in our group was 2.8 people per home.
Like DuPage County, over three-quarters of summit
attendees were white, with a variety of other racial/ethnic
backgrounds represented. One quarter of summit
participants had children under the age of 14 in their
homes.
Community Assets
Almost nine in ten of our households have cars,
with an average of two cars in those households.
We average 4.7 transit trips per person per month.
In January, we took 203 trips altogether. We also
use our feet to get around. Those of us who walk
regularly make an average of almost four trips per
week. Driving alone is our primary means of
getting around, and our next most likely mode of
transportation is using a car with other people.
Transit is our third most frequent mode of travel,
followed by biking and then by walking. Sixty-five
percent of our group has a bus stop within a mile of
our homes while 51% of us have train service
within a mile of our homes. Only 18% of us have
transit frequency of more than twice an hour, which
makes transit a less reliable mode for us. While we
are currently car dependent, we came together at the
summit to explore alternatives to auto use in our
county. Improving public transportation was the
top-ranked way that respondents would improve
transportation in the region.
Challenges and Solutions
Increase transit connectivity and efficiency
We see a great need for transit service in our area to
be enhanced. As citizens, it is our right to know
about transit options and opportunities to make
connections between transit services, yet our
experience is that we are often in the dark about the
availability of these resources. We would like to
see better marketing and education by the transit
agencies to make the public more aware of options
to use transit. More signage and scheduling
information (including accessible and audible
information), as well as bus shelters, are simple
steps that would be enormously helpful to us as
transit users. We would chose to have our tax
money invested in improved transit, rather than
building new roads. Our roads are wide and easily
accommodate our cars, but we would prefer to
travel by other means than our personal vehicles.
For those of us who do not have cars or do not drive
because of age or physical ability, it is quite
difficult to travel in our region.
The infrastructure for commuter rail connectivity is
in place in our region, and is basically well
structured for east-west travel. Properly planned
transit stations are an asset to our downtowns, as
they are a nucleus for businesses, shoppers, and
employers. Transit stations have economic value
and also serve as a meeting point in our community;
it is a top priority for us that planners recognize
their worth. It is important to us to be able to access
our jobs and other businesses through transit
options. For many of us, mobility is limited on
weekends, because of the lesser frequency of off-
peak train service on most routes. We would like to
see service become more frequent on many train
lines in our region, including north-south
connections. Transportation planners should also
consider the possibility of improving connectivity
in our region through a light rail system, an efficient
and environmentally sound means of transportation.
Bus service improvements are needed as well. We
need comfortable buses and better coordination
with train service in route scheduling and
frequency. We are discouraged from using buses
by poor signage at bus stops that have no
indications of the schedule. Having audible,
accessible real-time information about bus service
would be an excellent improvement to the
convenience of the bus system in our area. Buses
should run with greater frequencies on all routes,
but especially in north-south routes connecting to
train lines. It would be helpful to improve the Pace
connections to O'Hare airport. Often, we are left
standing on high-traffic streets, waiting for a bus
without a bus shelter for protection.
In our downtown areas, shuttle buses would be a
good means of encouraging people to get out of
their cars for short trips. Shuttle buses or municipal
vanpools are an excellent investment to promote
economic development in our downtowns since
they could transport people quickly between
popular destinations within short distances of each
other. Naperville and the College of DuPage are
particularly important locations for shuttle service.
Safety is an important concern
We are concerned about our safety as travelers in
the county, both because of the dangers of driving
and the threat that cars pose to us as bicyclists,
pedestrians, children, and the disabled. Too often,
sidewalks end in our neighborhoods with nowhere
for the walker go but into the busy road itself. We
are concerned that our children do not always have
a safe means of travel. Bicyclists are constantly
challenged to ride next to fast-moving traffic on
roads without designated bike routes. It is difficult
and frequently unsafe to go on a family bike ride,
!
!
!
!
!
!
! !
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
M e t r a
S t a t io n
E x is t in g
C o m m it t e d
o r P la n n e d
M e t r a
since the routes are narrow if they exist at all in our
neighborhoods. Safe pedestrian and bike
connections to transit are important, to facilitate
transit use. We propose that all new roads include
transit lanes, sidewalks, and bike lanes. We place a
high value on health in our community. It is
unacceptable that traveling should create serious
health and safety risks, whether by car, transit,
bicycle or walking.
Environmental protection is crucial to us
We place a high priority on air and water quality,
and all too often find them undermined by sprawling
patterns of development. We are concerned by the
health risks associated with air quality, such as
asthma. We have a wonderful network of trails in
our region that is one of our most precious assets.
We refuse to have it compromised by shortsighted
planning that might overlook it as a resource. We
see the Grand Illinois trail that runs through DuPage
County as a multipurpose resource for recreation and
travel alike, which should be better connected to
destinations and offer safe crossings at the roads in
our county. It is important that our watersheds and
our wildlife be protected. We do not want to see the
small amount of agricultural and open land in our
region turned into concrete or asphalt.
Plan for the movement of people first
It is a top priority for the public to have a voice in the
plans that are made locally and regionally. There
should be more public outreach like that conducted
this year by the Mayors' and Managers' Conference
for the new Transit Plan. Neighborhoods should be
walkable places. This will require changes to our
roads; more sidewalks are needed alongside roads
throughout DuPage county. Pedestrian signals are
also needed at many intersections. Of particular note
are the dangerous crossings along North Avenue,
where bicyclists, students going to high school and
pedestrians are all at risk in crossing dangerous
intersections. Roosevelt Road and Butterfield Road
also present difficult crossings. Many streets need
lighting improvements, and the rights of pedestrians
must be enforced as well so that we are not
threatened while we are on foot. Snow removal
crews should clear sidewalks and bus shelter areas so
that they can be used year-round, just like the roads.
Opportunities for bicycling in our region should be
encouraged, since bike transportation allows for both
recreation and travel. We would like to see bike
racks on buses and would like Metra to allow bikes
on their trains. More bike routes are needed on both
North-South and East-West thoroughfares. While
our trail network is a good start, we would also like
to see routes on Butterfield Road and on North
Avenue. It is imperative to us that streets be
designed so that all users of the roads are
accommodated.
Our Vision
Planning in our region must be based upon
convenient, safe, and efficient alternatives to
driving. Transportation decisions affect our
quality of life. Priority should be given to
environmental protection as we plan our region's
development. We envision transit that is reliable,
comprehensive, and accessible to all people in
DuPage County. Safety for drivers, bicyclists,
pedestrians, children, and the differently-abled is
imperative in transportation planning and decision
making. Public involvement in local and regional
planning is an important means of making
transportation plans reflect the needs of the
citizens in our region. It is crucial to us that
adequate funding be provided to meet our needs
and our vision for transportation in our county.
*Source: Chicago Area Transportation Study
Rail/Trail Connections
*
The DuPage County Connecting Communities summit participants came as individuals and as members of
groups. The people who helped plan the summit came from the following groups:
Citizen Advocacy Center
DuPage Babysitting Co-op
Mothers and More
Illinois Prairie Path (IPPc)
The Citizen Transportation Plan is a project of the Chicagoland Transportation and Air
Quality Commission, part of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, 2125 W. North Ave.,
Chicago, IL 60647, 773-278-4800, ext. 2030. Visit us on the web at www.cnt.org/2030.
Friends of the Chicago River
Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization
Interreligious Sustainability Project
League of Women Voters of Illinois
Metro Seniors in Action
Metropolitan Planning Council
Mid America Institute on Poverty
Sierra Club
Sustain
Connecting Communities Regional Partners
Business and Professional People for the Public Interest
Chicago Design Consortium
Chicago Metropolis 2020
Chicago Rehab Network
Chicagoland Bicycle Federation
Citizen Action-Illinois
Council for Disability Rights
Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest
Recommendations
Maximize use of transit.
Increase service on existing trains to increase ridership, including weekend service. Integrate train and bus
schedules to promote use. Build new accessible stations, especially in the western part of the county and where there are high
employment concentrations, including County Farm Road (County Complex) and Ogden Avenue in Naperville. New and existing
stations must have ADA curb cuts, telephones, bike racks, benches, audible signals and tactile warning strips on platform edges.
Transit-oriented development should be encouraged with shops, dry cleaners, restaurants and restrooms near stations.
Create new and increased service to and between existing train lines and town centers by creative use of bus and shuttle routes.
Emphasize north-south bus lines that create a predictable grid with train service, for instance I-59, Naperville Road, York Road.
Develop shuttle service radiating out from the College of DuPage, linking with train and bus lines. Low-cost enhancements like
signage, lighting and shelters at bus stops should be installed immediately. Other new service should include transit access to O'Hare,
commuter service on the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern rail line, and exploration of the possibility of light rail and/or monorail in our
county. Pace bus service is needed on Route 53.
Make our communities safe for all travelers.
Sidewalks should receive the highest priority in DuPage County. Roads in our
county should be adapted for pedestrian and bicycle use. Safe routes to schools and to places like the Morton Arboretum should be
given attention first. The most dangerous routes, like North Avenue and Butterfield Road should be immediately retrofitted to
accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, with other roads to follow. Lighting and intersection improvements to enhance safety for
pedestrians, including children, seniors and the disabled, and cyclists are an inexpensive and effective way to encourage healthy
travel. Sidewalks and bike routes are a cost-effective investment. Reallocate road funds that would provide just a limited number of
lane miles to build a comprehensive network of sidewalks and bike routes. The county and municipalities should adopt snow
removal policies for all hard surfaced sidewalks or bike routes that equal or exceed the standard for roads.
Encourage and market the use of our trail system as a multi-use, multi-modal route that connects with other routes and modes.
Emphasize the practical as well as recreational function of bike and pedestrian transportation modes. Link trails with train stations by
providing cycling amenities at stations. Accomodate bicycles on Metra, but in space separate from the disabled seating.
Preserve and protect our environment.
To address air and noise pollution problems, we feel that no new roads should be built in
our area, although we would invest in grade separations to avoid congestion and poor air quality where rail lines and roads meet,
especially Main Street in Wheaton, the Union Pacific crossing at Roosevelt Road in Glen Ellyn, Grace Street/St. Charles Road in
Lombard and Belmont Road in Downers Grove. We would like to see alternative fuel buses used in our county. Priority should be
given to maintaining the existing transportation infrastructure so that no further open land, prairies, farms, or wetlands are destroyed
by new developments. Encourage the clustering of residential and commercial development around train stations to preserve open
space and create transit-oriented development opportunities in our towns. Conduct a survey of parking to determine demand for
additional parking at stations, but emphasize improving other modes of travel to stations to increase the supply of parking.
Use our taxes to give us choices.
Transportation funds should be redirected to support public transit. It is more cost-effective to
invest in pedestrian, bicycle, and public transportation infrastructure than roads and our taxpayer money should support these uses,
since they benefit us directly. Pedestrian safety should receive receive a substantial increase in funds to address a significant
problem. These changes will require foresight in planning, and we expect our decision-makers to actively seek and respond to public
input so that we can make responsible choices about growth in our region.