CENTRAL ILLINOIS ORGANIZING PROJECT

The $350,000 grant, part of the huge transportation bill passed by Congress last week, will allow for four nighttime routes through a pilot project, said Tim Timoney, secretary of the Springfield Mass Transit District board.

The board will pick from among its 12 routes based on which are busiest, Timoney said. The routes will likely go to White Oaks Mall on the west side, a location somewhere along North Dirksen Parkway, the University of Illinois at Springfield and a fourth destination to be determined later.

The routes should go to each major area of Springfield, Timoney said. If the project is successful, SMTD will look for ways to make the service permanent.

The service should run until 10:30 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. The board will have to make that decision in the upcoming months, said SMTD director Richard Fix.

Money for the service should be available Oct. 1, Fix said. He estimated that it will take about three months after that to get the service up and running.

"That all hinges on the money. You never know when you're going to get the money," Fix said.

The board will also have to decide what kind of fee structure to implement for the new service.

SMTD applied for the grant in February. Mayor Tim Davlin said he, the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce and the city's economic development council had developed the list of projects they wanted to seek federal funding for during the first several months he was in office.

Kathi Eads, a member of the Central Illinois Organizing Project, which has pushed for nighttime bus service for the past year, was ecstatic about the money.

Eads' group believes running buses at night - something the city hasn't done since the 1950s - is needed for those who work and socialize then but don't have access to a car, especially the poor and disabled. SMTD currently shuts off service about 6 p.m.

Eads said her group is planning a publicity campaign to make sure people will know the new service is available. CIOP plans to inform groups that try to find jobs for low-income earners, as well as groups that help out the disabled.

"We're hoping that we can create a lot of interest and motivation to use the buses," Eads said. "People get so used to not have evening bus service, they don't think about it."

Eads said Peoria's experience shows that evening bus service can work in a mid-sized central Illinois city. Peoria has had service for about three years, she said. Federal and state funds combine with local funds so that the service can be offered. Peoria has a transportation entity separate from city and county government, as Springfield does, she said.

Eads' group supports the routes being discussed but emphasized that residents on the east side should have access to them without having to travel downtown.

Also Monday, the financial picture for other local road projects included in the transportation bill became clearer.

The $6.8 million to fund the extension of 11th Street to the University of Illinois at Springfield will complete that project, said Durbin and Obama, who stood at the intersection of 11th and Hazel Dell Road, the last leg of the extension that has been finished.

The $3.2 million to extend MacArthur Boulevard from Wabash Avenue to Iron Bridge Road will make it possible for MacArthur to have an interchange with Interstate 72, but the money will not actually fund the interchange.

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, helped secure $1.2 million of the funding for the MacArthur project.

Another $30.6 million for the extension and interchange is set to come from the state and the city, and construction should begin in the spring, according to the state's annual highway improvement plan that was released in May.

The $5 million over four years to build a rail, bus, taxi and rental car transportation hub will fund planning as well as some land acquisition, according to Davlin. The city is still considering where to build the hub, but it should be somewhere along the Ninth and 11th street corridors, he said.

Obama, who helped negotiate the transportation bill in a House-Senate conference committee, and Durbin hailed the legislation both for its ability to improve the city's infrastructure but also its ability to create jobs. This bill, which will provide funding for the next five years, contains more money for Illinois than the one passed in 1998.

Illinois received about $927 million a year in the 1998 bill compared with about $1.236 billion a year for the 2005 bill. Every $1 billion spent on transportation creates 24,000 jobs, the state's two Democratic senators said.

"It gives you a two-fer," Obama said. "You get the immediate payoff of the jobs that are created building roads and bridges across the state. More significantly ... is that you create the platform for long-term economic development in the region."

Chris Wetterich can be reached at 788-1523 or chris.wetterich@sj-r.com.