Citing financial woes, the University of Illinois-Chicago announced plans to end rush hour shuttle service between the Illinois Medical District and two commuter rail stations in the Loop.

Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services Mark Donovan sent the cancellation announcement to staff late last week along with word that ending the service was part of the Campus Master Plan to provide “better and more efficient service.”

Service is expected to end by the first week of October at the latest.

The shutter primarily serves University of Illinois Medical Center staff, providing rides to and from Ogilvie Transportation Center and Union Station, where commuter trains connect suburban home-life with city work-life. Students also use the service to commute and join staff in paying $2 per ride. Busses serve six stops each morning and seven stops in the afternoon.

“The other medical centers have buses, now UIC does not,” said medical center employee Kathy Lusher.

During Monday’s afternoon rush hour, Lusher stood at shuttle stop at TK, waiting for the next available bus with fellow employee Roberta LeMonica — a shuttle rider for the past 10 years. Both are daily riders and say it’s well used and needed.

But Bill Burton, a university spokesman, described the shuttle as a high-cost redundancy to Chicago Transit Authority routes. He noted the CTA’s 157, 60 and 7 buses run from the medical district to the rail stations.

“We just don’t have the ridership,” Burton said. “It’s just not working.”

The shuttle program delivered employees and students throughout the medical district at a deficit for 10 years, according to Donovan’s letter. The university can no longer operate the busses at a deficit, he wrote.

Lusher said she sees about 15 people on each shuttle she rides. On Monday, three shuttles left the medical center between 4:00 and 4:30 p.m. Each held less than four riders bound for the train stations.

The shuttle, which riders said offers safe and reliable transportation, falls under “auxiliary services,” and Burton said all such services have to break even financially. He was unable to say what the shuttle’s annual deficit was, nor how many people use it.

A fare increase is not a likely solution to the problem because to do so would result in a rate above the Chicago Transit Authority’s rate, Burton said.

Before dropping the service altogether, Donavan wrote that a search is under way for a shuttle transportation partner within the medical district

“We have been exploring and will continue to explore opportunities with institutions in the area to develop a program that would operate at a break-even point and not require a subsidy,” Donavan wrote.

Speaking in Donovan’s place, Burton said he would not speculate on what opportunities might be explored with which institutions.

“There are a number of institutions that have a large number of employees and students,” he said.

Contact: gskinner@chicagojournal.com