Ride Lake County, an affordable transportation partnership with Pace serving seniors and people with disabilities, has surpassed more than 5,000 trips since its launch in early May.

Members of the Lake County Board’s Public Works, Planning and Transportation Committee are mostly hearing positive reviews of the program, which allows for round-trip rides anywhere in Lake County for $12 or less.

But, some residents are reporting difficulties with transporting groceries back home on Pace buses after using the service to get to the supermarket.

During a presentation from the Lake County Division of Transportation on Wednesday, District 10 member Jessica Vealitzek and District 6 member John Wasik each asked about possible solutions to situations where riders are being asked to move their groceries from carts onto empty seats when riding the bus, rather than being able to bring carts on.

“ (The program) is looking really good,” Wasik said. “To echo what member Vealitzek was saying about the shopping cart issue, is it a matter that they can’t accommodate shopping carts in the buses? Do they need to be modified? Is that the problem?

“It’s a terrible imposition for somebody who’s got a cart full of groceries to take them out, put them on a seat and then put them back in,” he said. “These are their buses and their policy, but is this something that requires modification?”

Mike Klemens, the Lake County Division of Transportation’s director of transportation and planning, told the committee that Pace has begun to prompt drivers to enforce an existing policy on allowing grocery carts that are not collapsible on the bus.

“They view it as a safety issue,” Klemens said. “Aside from the one spot in the vehicle where a wheelchair would go, there really isn’t a spot in the vehicle where a full cart could be safely stored on the vehicle while it’s in transit. With our ridership growing, there isn’t a guarantee that wheelchair spot will be open when someone gets on the vehicle with a full cart. So their policy is that it needs to be emptied out and folded during transit. We recognize it’s an inconvenience for riders, absolutely.”

District 13 member and board Chair Sandy Hart cited how a similar transit program in Saginaw, Michigan gave away approximately 200 grocery carts for riders to bring onto their buses in 2021. Hart also noted that transit programs in Muncie, Indiana and Lawrence, Kansas provided specified grocery carts that were conducive to bus travel for their riders.

In addition to the initiative’s goal of helping elderly and disabled people travel around to shop, work, get to medical appointments or visit family and friends, Hart said the county should remain committed to its intention to help lower-income residents access quality food sources that might not be as close to home as they often are for residents in higher-income areas.

“A lot of these people who are using these services are low-income, as member (Terry) Wilke was saying, and many times we know people who live in a low-income area don’t have access to good grocery stores,” Hart said. “So they need to have a way to get groceries. This is one way to do it. There are three communities in our (Midwest) area that have figured out how to make that happen.”

Hart also asked if Pace could provide the county with detailed information on its most frequently used bus stops. Shortly after Ride Lake County’s launch, members of the committee discussed a need to implement more bus shelters for riders at many of the county’s more frequented stops.

Klemens said his department will approach Pace for that data, and work with the suburban bus company on finding a solution to grocery storage.

Through July 26, Klemens said ridership was at about 1,500 trips for the month, slightly down from 1,793 trips in May and 1,994 trips in June. He said there was a noticeable dip in residents signing up for rides during the week of July 4.

He said Pace data shows that riders are most frequently scheduling trips to and from Waukegan, Gurnee, Round Lake and Round Lake Beach, Antioch and the Vernon Hills area. The southern portions of the county are seeing less use, which Klemens said corresponds with the results of a prior paratransit study the county carried out.

Despite a few bumps, Hart said she was “so excited to see the numbers growing.”

“The use of these Pace buses, I think it really is life-changing for many people to be able to get to work,” Hart said. “Especially people who live with disabilities.”

The committee unanimously approved of a new Stormwater Management Commission map, setting the map up for a vote in front of the full board next month. The remapping, required by statute after the 2020 U.S. Census, maintains the six-district format the county has used since the commission’s formation in the early 1990s.

The map was drawn with goals of creating evenly populated districts that mirror the county’s major watersheds, and keep municipalities and county board districts as intact as possible.

Kurt Woolford, who was named the Stormwater Management Commission’s executive director in 2021, noted that the district boundaries remain mostly the same as where they were set in 2011. Additionally, all six districts have populations between 118,500 and 119,315 people.

“We actually did a much better job this time on population,” Woolford said. “I think our highest standard deviation was 0.4 %.”

The committee also began discussions incorporating amendments to the Watershed Development Ordinance and add corresponding changes into the Unified Development Ordinance to reflect updated rainfall and stormwater detention regulations.

The possible amendments are being considered along with an intergovernmental agreement between the county’s Planning, Building and Development Department and the Stormwater Management Commission, which would establish a fee-in-lieu program that would serve as an alternative for on-site stormwater storage regulations. The program would be administered by the Stormwater Management Commission, and would also have to come before the Finance and Administrative Committee for review and approval before advancing to a vote in front of the full Lake County Board.

Planning, Building and Development Department director Eric Waggoner said the intergovernmental agreement be for four years — with a two-year deal, then an automatic two-year renewal — that could serve as “sort of a trial period” for whether the county should continue a fee-in-lieu program into the long-term future.

Both items are expected to be brought back for the committee’s approval at the Aug. 3 committee meeting.

Committee chair Jennifer Clark, who represents District 15, moved to postpone a presentation and discussion on the planting and protection of native trees and plants in unincorporated Lake County until its Aug. 3 meeting because members Ann Maine and Gina Roberts were unable to attend on Wednesday.