The Weekly: Pace ReVision project, Student government elections, The New York Times access

Dov Weinstein Elul, Finian Hazen, Hannah Webster, and Janelle Mella

January 26, 2025

The Daily Northwestern · The Weekly: Pace ReVision project, Student government elections, The New York Times access

What changes will Pace make in light of their financial troubles? How does the Associated Student Government decide its election guidelines? What benefits does the new New York Times subscription offer students? The Daily answers these questions and recaps other top stories from the last week.

DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Pace works on a system redesign for bus services.

The Associated Student Government debates student election guidelines and partners with Northwestern Libraries to give the Northwestern community free access to The New York Times.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Dov Weinstein Elul.

FINIAN HAZEN: And I’m Finian Hazen. This is The Weekly, a breakdown of the top headlines from the past week.

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DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Today, we’re starting with Copy Chief Hannah Webster to take us to the suburban bus agency Pace’s ReVision project.

You wrote about potential upcoming changes to Pace Suburban Bus Service. Pace is a bus transportation system that provides bus service and paratransit in the Chicago metropolitan area, including to Evanston.

To get us started, why don’t you explain what the proposed changes are for Pace citywide, and then explain how this would directly affect Evanston.

HANNAH WEBSTER: So Pace is interesting because it largely serves the Chicago suburbs. So, a lot of those changes you would be seeing in places like Evanston. And the main idea is that there is no concrete plan yet, but the overarching goal is to increase Pace’s network, whether that is by expanding geographically or increasing the frequency of these lines.

DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: In your article, you wrote about two different plans. They have the Pace Plus 50 Ridership plan and also the Pace Plus 50 Coverage plan. Can you just articulate what the difference is between these two plans?

HANNAH WEBSTER: So, the ridership plan would focus on the areas that already often have these Pace lines, but they’d be focused on increasing the frequency. A lot of these lines run between every 30 minutes to every 60 minutes and the goal would be to increase those to more like every 15 minutes. So that would focus on areas where there are low-income populations, where a lot of people don’t own vehicles, and the main goal is basically to increase the ridership. That’s why it’s called the ridership plan, even if that doesn’t necessarily translate to a greater geographic area.

The alternative is the coverage plan, which would basically just expand Pace into broader areas and expand into those outer suburbs, so with that case, we wouldn’t see as much change in an area like Evanston, because Evanston is closer to Chicago and already has quite a bit of coverage.

And one thing to point out is that it is likely that neither of these plans will be adopted in their entirety. Speaking with a Pace spokesperson, she implied that what we’ll end up seeing will likely be some sort of combination of the two plans.

DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Thinking specifically about Evanston, for those who aren’t so familiar with the bus routes and such, what are we exactly talking about? Like, literally, what bus routes? What would these changes be?

HANNAH WEBSTER: In Evanston, we have a couple Pace routes. One of the main ones that has been most used recently is the Pace Pulse (Dempster) Line, which runs between the Davis station and O’Hare. And that line wouldn’t see many changes in either of these proposals, because it already runs every 15 minutes because it’s the Pulse line.

One thing that could change if the ridership plan was adopted is Route 208 and that would increase frequency from every 30 minutes to every 15 minutes. The outline plan also has Route 213, which runs south, stopping at Davis instead of running all the way to Howard, which is something that people have been a little critical about. But again, these are all preliminary plans.

The other thing that we could see changed is if the coverage plan was adopted that would discontinue Route 213, although that would be covered by a new route. So, it’s not really a change in coverage, it’s just a different name for that route. Those are the main ones that Evanston would see if these changes were implemented.

DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: A main focus of your article was that these changes in plans are going forward, despite financial crises. How deep are these financial troubles and why is this still going through despite that?

HANNAH WEBSTER: One thing that’s important to remember is that these are proposals, and they are dependent on legislative funding. So Pace is asking for this money, and it is a significant amount of money. They hope that they will get it, but it’s not certain. But, at the root of the problem, Chicago has had poorly funded public transit compared to similar cities across the country for quite a bit of time.

This isn’t really a new problem, although the problem grew substantially after COVID. A lot of the current issue is that this COVID-era funding that came from the federal level is set to expire in 2026, which is actually when Pace is hoping to implement these programs. So it’s an interesting dynamic, because on the one hand, public transit is really facing a substantial fiscal cliff, but they are using this opportunity to sort of reinvent the system, even in light of these financial issues.

DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: You mentioned multiple times that these are just proposals. In terms of a timeline for action actually being taken, what can we expect?

HANNAH WEBSTER: So basically, they’re hoping to have a draft plan by this summer, and then by the end of the year have a final plan to present. The goal is to have this ready to implement by 2026.

DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Awesome. Hannah, thank you so much.

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FINIAN HAZEN: Next, I spoke with Development and Recruitment Editor Janelle Mella on her two stories about Associated Student Government this week.

First, let’s talk about the ASG Election Commission guidelines.

At Wednesday’s ASG meeting, election reforms were a big topic. Can you explain what changes were proposed and by whom?

JANELLE MELLA: So, with the 2025 ASG presidential elections coming up in February, the Election Commission reviewed the election guidelines and basically made minor changes to them and had senators vote on whether they agreed with the changes or not.

So all the changes ended up getting added, but after that time, Luis Castañeda wanted a say on some of the rules within the guidelines. Luis was a former Medill senator, but also had tried to run for president in 2024 but did not make it on the ballot for reasons that he believed were bureaucratic barriers from the guidelines.

Some of these changes that he had proposed in his presentation were he felt that the time people got to collect presidential signatures, which is basically the period where you get people to sign their support for you, and there’s like a minimum you need to collect to even be placed on the ballot, he said that this period was too short, and proposed that it should start on the first day of the quarter in which the election occurs.

He also felt that the election rule (that) candidates cannot utilize social media during the signature period was restrictive, and felt that social media would help candidates garner support during this period and should be allowed. So, he proposed that as well.

Lastly, he believed that senators should not have to notify the Election Commission to pre-campaign, and wanted candidates to have the ability to handle their own signature collection and submit the signatures either in person or online by the deadline.

So these were his main points that he believed would ensure democracy within the election process and fairness among candidates, and he also believed that it would ultimately increase participation in these elections.

FINIAN HAZEN: And what concerns were raised about these proposals?

JANELLE MELLA: So, some of the Senate was concerned that some of the changes wouldn’t be reasonable for the Election Commission to actually carry out. For example, someone had said extending the signature period could make it difficult for the commission to review all the signatures in time for the actual campaigning period, or that people not notifying the commission of their intent to pre-campaign could cause organizational issues within the commission for them knowing who exactly is running.

Another concern that was brought up was the fact that not everyone has an equal footing on social media, so they believed that it could potentially put candidates at an advantage or disadvantage from one another.

There were some senators that did agree with parts of Luis’ proposal, such as using social media for those who may not have the physical ability to promote themselves during the signature period due to disabilities or whatnot.

None of the proposed changes from Luis or counter changes from the senators were actually passed. So, the original 2025 guidelines that were previously voted on that day remained the same.

FINIAN HAZEN: There were two pieces of legislation that were passed. Can you tell me a little bit about those?

JANELLE MELLA: Sure, so one was actually an amendment proposal that was brought up at the ASG meeting prior to that that aimed to allow senators studying abroad to participate in Senate sessions virtually.

Under the rules before this was passed, senators studying abroad were only allowed to send a proxy in their place, and virtual attendance was allowed in extreme weather conditions. But with this now-passed amendment, senators abroad are able to attend Senate through Zooms, or Teams or other video platforms to ensure they can fully participate in Senate responsibilities, such as voting, introducing legislation and meeting with other senators.

And then there was another piece of legislation that was introduced that day and then also passed in the same day due to the fact that it got voted as an emergency legislation piece. The resolution called for urgent support for undocumented students at Northwestern.

It basically emphasized that various barriers these students face, including limited access to legal aid, inadequate careers resources and poor academic advising and current institutional policies among faculty and staff about the challenges undocumented students face, added to the difficulty that students at Northwestern faced.

The resolution also called for training programs to implement for faculty and staff to better serve undocumented students and for improvements in the university’s financial aid and advising systems, just to, like, address their needs.

So, the ultimate goal of that resolution was just to create a more supportive and inclusive environment for undocumented students at Northwestern.

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FINIAN HAZEN: An ASG initiative that NU community members have been able to use since last June is free New York Times subscriptions.

Can you explain how this came about and who was involved?

JANELLE: Yeah, so the Northwestern Libraries put the initiative into effect in June of 2024. I spoke with Geoff Morse, who is the interim head of the Distinctive Collectives and Research Services Department, and he told me that over the past few years, students had expressed interest to him that they wished there was a New York Times subscription through the actual site, not just through where currently students received texts from their third-party source on ProQuest.

Morse told me that the initiative had been in conversation for a bit, and then they just decided to actually implement it last year. The other people involved in the initiative, not directly, but like in a separate way, was the Associated Student Government Analytics Committee.

So basically, they had surveyed students about their usage of The Wall Street Journal subscription that Northwestern already had provided for students, and found that 40% of students hadn’t even known it existed.

So in the same round of surveying, they’d also decided to collect data on student usage of The New York Times. Through talking with students, they found out that The New York Times seemed to be beneficial to students in ways different from The Wall Street Journal.

So they were curious on the usage of The New York Times. They had found that, since The Wall Street Journal is very business and finance-centric, The New York Times had several other features that students could access like games or like they have a cooking site.

And so through their data, the Analytics Committee found out that students had been assigned readings in their classes from The New York Times, but only a small percentage of people actually had paid access to it.

So with this data, they had planned to bring it up with (the) administration. Then they found out that Northwestern Libraries had already planned it, so the two parties involved were separate, but both revealed a strong student interest for the subscription that eventually became free to students.

FINIAN HAZEN: Beyond just the news, what features does The New York Times subscription offer students?

JANELLE MELLA: You could directly access The New York Times through their website, and you get all the features that come with that. And then also, The New York Times has a mobile app, so students are now able to use the app through their phones.

And it differs from ProQuest because they got access to more than just the text and even audio that the ProQuest database didn’t provide.

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FINIAN HAZEN: Janelle, thanks so much.

DOV WEINSTEIN ELUL: Here are the other top headlines from the week:

Evanston’s MLK Day celebration highlights women’s legacy in the Civil Rights Movement.

Deering Library enters its second phase of construction and has a new elevator installed.

Hillel hosts “Pitch Perfect” star Skylar Astin.

Northwestern men’s basketball’s offensive attack helps the team beat Indiana 79-70.

And a new Church Street Plaza puts Chili’s on the chopping block.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Dov Weinstein Elul.

FINIAN HAZEN: And I’m Finian Hazen.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported by Dov Weinstein Elul, Finian Hazen, Hannah Webster and Janelle Mella and produced by Finian Hazen, Dov Weinstein Elul and Anavi Prakash.

The Audio Editor is Anavi Prakash. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Kelley Lu and Jillian Moore. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.

Our theme music is “Night Owl” by Broke for Free, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

Email: [email protected]

Email: [email protected]
X: @hannahe_webster

Email: [email protected]
X: @Janelle_Mella