Oak Park leaders were not interested in supporting a village-sponsored electric bus shuttle system in the village.
Oak Park’s village board heard from village staff about the feasibility of a village-sponsored electric shuttle bus program earlier this week. Staff’s exploration of the idea was ordered through the village’s Climate Ready Oak Park Plan, the ambitious emissions-reduction strategy that Oak Park codified in 2022.
But in 2026, the board doesn’t see sponsoring the service as an efficient way of reaching Oak Park’s ambitious climate goals. The program would likely come with high up-front costs, according to the consulting firm TYLin’s feasibility assessment.
A fixed-route service would cost between $2.2 million and $3.2 million depending on frequency of service, according to the consultant. While such a program could result in a “medium” or “medium-high” potential greenhouse gas reduction, trustees were not impressed with the cost to emissions saving ratio.
The program’s yearly emissions savings would be equivalent to electrifying “10 to 20” homes in the village, according to a calculation by Trustee Derek Eder.
“It’s just not taking a big chunk out of those emissions,” he said. “Through that lens, it doesn’t seem like an efficient way to spend money.”
Oak Park’s Chief Sustainability Officer Lindsey Roland Nieratka agreed with Eder’s assessment.
“The emission savings aren’t exceptional, to see emission reductions from this we’d have to replace a lot of gas vehicle trips. … I agree with you that if greenhouse gas emission reductions were our only goal there are other ways to get there.”
TYLin’s resident survey also found the Oak Parkers have “high expectations” for a potential shuttle service, which would likely be difficult for the village to meet.
“Many participants (44%) would not be willing to walk more than two blocks to access the shuttle, which could be a barrier to ridership.,” the consultants wrote in their report. “Wait times were also identified as the top barrier to public transit use, and the majority of participants (81%) would not be willing to wait more than 10 minutes for a shuttle.”
Oak Park did sponsor a local shuttle service during the 2000s, but the program was shuttered after a few years due in-part to low ridership, according to village documents. Trustee Cory Wesley said that a shuttle service would fill a gap in Oak Park, particularly for Oak Park and River Forest High School students since the school district does not offer bus service.
Oak Park students would be the “prime constituent” of a shuttle program, he said.
“I wish this was cheaper, because it’s expensive but there’s a real need for this,” he said. “This is a significant problem because a lot of people move here for our schools so we end up with a lot of kids trying to get across town. We only have one high school, so you have kids coming from southeast Oak Park, southwest Oak Park trying to get to OPRF and there is no good way. It creates unsafe traffic conditions.”
Village staff could bring back a proposal for shuttle service in the future if a significant opportunity for grant funding or inter-governmental partnership presented itself, according to Village Manager Kevin Jackson.
“We’ll continue to look for funding opportunities as they arise,” he said.