An organization focused on north suburban commuters is shutting down, as workers spend less time in offices and some suburban companies shift their attention to downtown Chicago.
The Transportation Management Association of Lake-Cook Corridor will end operations July 1. The organization had for years run shuttles to north suburban campuses, providing one option to solve a problem that has long vexed suburbs: how to help employees travel the last bit of their commute between a train or bus station and their office.
The closure comes amid a dramatic reshaping of the region’s corporate landscape. In just the north Cook County and south Lake County area once served by the TMA, insurance giant Allstate sold its sprawling Northbrook campus in 2022 and downsized. Baxter International tried to sell its Deerfield property, but eventually pulled it off the market after a prospective buyer pulled out when neighbors campaigned to derail a warehouse facility a developer proposed for the site. Walgreens moved to sell more than half its Deerfield headquarters, after moving many digital and IT employees to its downtown Chicago office in 2020 and later allowing many employees a hybrid work schedule.
The three campuses were among dozens of businesses once served by the commuter shuttle service.
The TMA, a not-for-profit organization whose members were businesses, municipalities and other government agencies, focused on better commuting options, traffic and pedestrian safety and efforts to reduce traffic congestion. The agency worked with Metra and Pace to begin the shuttle program 28 years ago.
Before the pandemic, the shuttle operated along 13 routes and was designed to meet specific Metra trains at five stations during rush hour, providing service to an estimated 1,000 commuters daily, according to the TMA. Pace and Metra each chipped in about a quarter of the cost, which in 2020 would have been $370,000 annually for Pace and nearly $330,000 for Metra.
But the pandemic brought commuting to a screeching halt. Metra and Pace stopped contributing to cover the cost as ridership across their systems plummeted, and Pace stopped handling the shuttles. The TMA for a time used a private company to manage shuttles for the handful of entities that signed onto the service after the pandemic, but demand from commuters never returned in force. The shuttle stopped operating at the end of March.
“If you’re only coming in two or three days a week, maybe you’re saying ‘I don’t mind driving,’” said Howard Goodman, executive director of the TMA.
One Pace bus route still serves weekday commuters, connecting with the CTA Yellow Line in Skokie and business parks in Lincolnshire and Buffalo Grove, but attempts to bridge the so-called “last mile” of a commute between a public transit station and the office are still needed, Goodman said. That includes efforts to serve second- or third-shift workers, who have limited options to use transit to get to warehouse or manufacturing jobs in the area, he said.
Instead of the shuttle, some of the TMA’s former corporate members worked out deals for employees to use ride-share services instead, Goodman said.
Pace has experimented with other options to bridge the end of riders’ commutes. The agency’s “On Demand” service allows passengers to reserve seats on a shared ride, but it operates only in designated zones where there is enough demand for rides.
The agency also began a “VanGo” service that allows registered users to reserve a van to drive from a transit stop to their workplace. The service operates out of four Metra stations and the CTA Blue Line station in Rosemont.”]
Pace said it would be open to revisiting options for the Lake-Cook County area “if future demand warrants additional service.”