The Sangamon Mass Transit District (SMTD) is a regional mass transit district that mostly serves

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States census, which makes it the state's List of cities in Illinois, seventh-most populous cit ...

, along with a few neighboring communities. It is governed by a seven-member board of trustees, who are all appointed by the

Sangamon County Sangamon County is a county located near the center of the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 196,343. Its county seat and largest city is Springfield, the state capital. Sangamon County is includ ...

Board of Supervisors. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of .

Routes

The Sangamon Mass Transit District operates 18 regular routes during the day, 9 routes at night, and 9 supplemental routes which serve schools. On weekdays between 6 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., most routes run every half-hour. Eleven of the day routes begin at the downtown transfer center, at 11th and Washington Streets, with buses leaving downtown at the top and bottom of the hour. Five routes begin at a secondary transfer center on Junction Circle, on the southwest side, where most of the area's growth and new development has taken place in recent decades. These routes leave Junction Circle at 15 and 45 minutes past the hour. One special route carries passengers between both locations, and one special route serves the colleges and nearby areas. On weeknights between 6 and 10 p.m., seven routes leave downtown once an hour, at the top of the hour, and two others begin and end at the

University of Illinois at Springfield The University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) is a public university in Springfield, Illinois, United States. The university was established by the Illinois General Assembly in 1969 as Sangamon State University with a focus on post-graduate edu ...

. The last buses of the night return to downtown at 11 p.m. Supplemental routes run only once per day. No service is offered on Sundays, nor on

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Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May. It i ...

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Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...

, or

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. Daytime routes *Route 0 Transfer Center Express – Downtown to Junction Circle *Route 1 Downtown to North 5th St. / Sand Hill Rd. - serves Illinois State Fairgrounds *Route 2 Downtown to North 9th St. / Piper Rd. / Northgate subdivision *Route 3 Downtown to Clear Lake Ave. / Midwest Technical Institute / Grandview *Route 4 Downtown to West Lawrence Ave. / West Jefferson St. *Route 5 Downtown to Memorial Medical Center / St. John's Hospital / North Grand Ave. *Route 6 Junction Circle to Clear Lake Ave. *Route 7 Downtown to West Washington St. / White Oaks Mall *Route 8 Downtown to South Grand Ave. / South MacArthur Blvd. - serves Leland Grove and

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

*Route 9 Downtown to Martin Luther King Dr. / East Cook St. *Route 10 Downtown to South 11th St. / Stevenson Dr. - serves the Laketown neighborhood *Route 11 Downtown to

University of Illinois Springfield The University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) is a public university in Springfield, Illinois, United States. The university was established by the Illinois General Assembly in 1969 as Sangamon State University with a focus on post-graduate edu ...

*Route 12 Downtown to South 6th St. / Southern View / Memorial Medical Center and St. John's Hospital *Route 13 Junction Circle to White Oaks Mall and other

shopping center A shopping center in American English, shopping centre in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), shopping complex, shopping arcade, ...

s on the southwest side *Route 14 Junction Circle to Southern View and Toronto Rd. *Route 15 Junction Circle to University of Illinois Springfield via Southern View, Chatham Hills subdivision *Route 16 Junction Circle to West Wabash Ave. *Route 501 University of Illinois at Springfield to

Lincoln Land Community College Lincoln Land Community College is a public community college in Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States ...

and nearby residential areas Evening Routes *Route 2 Downtown to North 9th St. / Piper Rd. / Northgate subdivision *Route 3 Downtown to Clear Lake Ave. / Midwest Technical Institute / Grandview *Route 5 Downtown to Memorial Medical Center / St. John's Hospital / North Grand Ave. *Route 902 Southeast Side *Route 903 West Side *Route 904 Southwest Side via Macarthur *Route 905 UIS *Route 15 UIS to Chatham Hills subdivision via Junction Circle and Southern View *Route 501 UIS to LLCC and Lake Pointe subdivision Supplemental routes *Route 202 Ash and Greentree to Laketown/Southern View *Route 204 Lewis and Adams to downtown *Route 208 11th and North Grand to downtown *Route 210 Lewis and Adams to Amos / Golf / Brentwood *Route 212 Ash and Greentree to downtown *Route 214 11th and North Grand to Bruns Lane *Route 215 Laketown/Southern View to Ash and Greentree *Route 217 Clearlake to 11th and North Grand *Route 220 Lewis and Adams to East Cook / Martin Luther King Jr. Drive

Cash fare, transfers and passes

Regular bus fare is $1.25 for anyone age five or over. Up to two children under the age of four are permitted on the buses free of charge with an adult. More than two children under this age will cost an additional 60 cents. For senior citizens, disabled persons, or Medicare card holders, fare is 60 cents with proof of such status. Senior citizens and disabled persons enrolled in the Benefit Access program can procure a photo ID that enables them to ride without paying a fare. Transfers between connecting buses are free and available upon request of the driver when fare is initially paid. Discount bus passes for students, senior citizens, and disabled people are available at public, private, and parochial schools, Lincoln Library, the local

Hy-Vee Hy-Vee, Inc. (), is an employee-owned chain of supermarkets in the Midwestern and Southern United States, with more than 280 locations in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, with stores planned in ...

, and the SMTD home office at 928 S. 9th Street. Reloadable fare cards are available at the main office.

Buses

The routes are covered with 53

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

es (15 fueled with

Compressed natural gas Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a fuel gas mainly composed of methane (CH4), compressed to less than 1% of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure. It is stored and distributed in hard containers at a pressure of , usually in ...

, 34 fueled with

diesel Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine ...

) and 22 paratransit vans. All buses are equipped with bike racks. As of July 1, 2018, the buses are *Four 2008

Gillig Gillig (formerly Gillig Brothers) is an American designer and Bus manufacturing, manufacturer of buses. The company headquarters, along with its manufacturing operations, is located in Livermore, California (in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay A ...

(Diesel) buses *Ten 2011

(Diesel) buses *Five 2013

(Diesel) 30' buses *Seven 2013

New Flyer Industries New Flyer is a Canadian multinational bus manufacturer, specializing in the production of transit buses. New Flyer is owned by the NFI Group, a holding company for several bus manufacturers. New Flyer has several manufacturing facilities in Can ...

buses *Seven 2014

(Diesel) buses *Two 2017

(Diesel) buses *Eight 2018

buses *Nine 2018

(Diesel) buses

Paratransit

The SMTD operates a paratransit service named Access Sangamon for

disabled Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physica ...

people who are unable to use the regular buses. Service is available at the same times that the regular buses are operating.

Funding and employees

In 2017, the employee headcount was 143, of whom 116 were members of

labor union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

s and 27 were administrative personnel. The annual budget was $7.2 million. In the SMTD's 2017 operating budget, 9% was met through

fare A fare is the fee paid by a passenger for use of a public transport system: rail, bus, taxi, etc. In the case of air transport, the term airfare is often used. Fare structure is the system set up to determine how much is to be paid by various p ...

s paid by riders. An additional 1% was earned through other private-sector-style income streams, such as income from placards and

billboards A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large out-of-home advertising, outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboard ...

on the buses, and the remaining 90% consisted of federal, state, and local public-sector funding.

Recent developments

On January 1, 2017, SMTD changed its operating name from Springfield Mass Transit District to Sangamon Mass Transit District. Limited-service suburban routes ran from 2018 to 2022. In 2019, the city opened a new transfer center on the east edge of downtown, and at the same time, completely overhauled its routes. The redesigned routes cover a larger geographical area than before, bringing service with reach of up to 10,000 additional area residents. Construction of the Springfield-Sangamon Transportation Center at the downtown transfer center began in 2021, and improvements are under construction to an adjacent railroad. When complete, the new facility is expected to become part of the

Chicago Hub Network The Chicago Hub Network is a collection of proposed fast conventional and high-speed rail lines in the Midwestern United States including of track. Since the 1990s, there have been multiple proposals to build a network from Chicago to destin ...

, Illinois' new high-speed rail system, with stops by

trains A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

and

intercity bus An intercity bus service (North American English) or intercity coach service (British English and Commonwealth English), also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public t ...

es.

Greyhound bus Greyhound Lines, Inc. is an American operator of intercity bus services. Greyhound operates the largest intercity bus network in the United States, and also operates charter and Amtrak Thruway services, as well as intercity buses in Mexico. B ...

es began using the new transfer point in November 2022. Presently, Amtrak trains run on another railroad about half a mile west of the new transfer center. In 2022, the SMTD board approved a Zero Emissions Transition Plan, which would see the removal of all diesel buses by 2035 in favor of a combination of

hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...

and zero-emission buses, with all buses being zero-emission by 2048. As of 2022, 60% of buses in the fleet were diesel powered, with the remainder being powered by compressed natural gas.

Fixed Route Ridership

The ridership statistics shown here are of fixed route services only and do not include demand response.

References

External links

Sangamon Mass Transit District homepage
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