Districts 68, 99 Bus Terminal Request Sent Back to Lisle Planning Commission

Where Westway Coach, Inc., will set up a bus terminal and dispatch center to serve Districts 58, and is still unclear after the Lisle Village Board voted Wednesday to send a special use permit for a location in Lisle back to the Lisle Planning and Zoning Commission. 

Westway Coach, Inc., will serve Districts 58, 68 and 99 through an agreement between the three districts to consolidate bus services. Westway's three-year contract with the three districts starts July 1.

The decision will save District 68 $200,000 a year, according to Kevin Wegner, assistant superintendent of business for the district. 

The proceedings for a proposed bus terminal and dispatch center at 4951 Indiana Ave. in Lisle has been since it was discussed in a public hearing in May at a Lisle planning and zoning commission meeting.

At the meeting, residents raised concerns over increased traffic, especially in these areas:

• Eastbound traffic toward Yackley clogging Burlington Avenue; buses being able to make a successful right turn at the intersection of Burlington and Yackley avenues.
• A similar effect in afternoon hours when parents are dropping off young athletes at Walker Athletics.
• Traffic backup on Ogden Avenue as buses congregate attempting to make left turns onto Indiana Avenue.

Concerns were also raised about the terminal's environmental impact and its proximity to a day care center. 

That public hearing was reopened last week at Lisle's June planning and zoning commission meeting to address resident concerns and to question new evidence for the location: a traffic study done June 7 and a chart of bus departure times for the 61 buses in the fleet. 

The commission members voted to approve a special use permit for Westway Coach, Inc.

Also during the meeting, Brian McClure, of McClure & Associates Insurance,  that the public hearing had not been properly noticed.

“We needed to have that in order for all the people who weren’t here tonight could actually be here,” McClure said at the meeting. 

He also alleged the traffic study was flawed because it didn’t account for students traveling to nearby Lisle Senior High School, Benet Academy and Benedictine University.

At Wednesday's village board meeting, members voted to send the permit request back to the planning and zoning commission. 

Trustee Ed Young made the first motion to do so. 

"I don't want to approve it with the record that we have in front of us," he said.

McClure issued a statement at Wednesday's meeting via a proxy, resident Julie Schnell. McClure said his rights as a business owner "had been denied."

"Unless this is re-noticed properly ... I or my attorney will be presenting a lawsuit in DuPage County," Schnell read.

The letter went on to cite a lack of property valuation impact or  environmental studies, snow removal and fire protection plans, and benefit to Lisle citizens. It also alleges that speakers at  were not allowed to cross-examine the petitioners.

Mayor Joe Broda asked Village Attorney Robert Bush to address the planning and zoning commission's actions throughout the hearing process. 

What does this mean for the terminal? 

Westway Coach, Inc., must go through the special use permit process once more by the planning and zoning commission and then have that permit request approved by the village board to set up its terminal in Lisle. 

The permit request is expected to appear on the commission's July 20 meeting. If the permit is approved then, it will be on the agenda for the next village meeting, which is Aug. 1. 

That means that unless Lisle has a special meeting prior to these dates to vote on the permit, Westway Coach, Inc., won't have the go-ahead to set up its bus terminal and dispatch center until August. 

The other option would be to find a new location for the terminal and dispatch center.

Property owner Mike Ciurek called the motion at Wednesday's village meeting "a little bit of a curveball." He mentioned that Westway would need to operate out of the space beginning in August, and the company may not be able to wait to go through the process another time.

"Obviously, time is of the essence," Westway representative John Benish, Jr. said Wednesday. Benish said he believed they had complied with village staff requests and are "trying to do exactly the right things to make sure we're a good neighbor."

Although Lisle wasn’t the intended location for the terminal, Downers Grove and Woodridge weren’t either.

Contracts provided by District 68 indicate the company was looking to find a location in Lemont or Bolingbrook, within five miles of the nearest school boundary. (District 68 and 99 boundaries currently extend into the southeast edge of Lisle.)