Joseph DiJohn, 67, director of the Metropolitan Transportation Support Initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago, died March 19 after battling lung cancer for several months.
DiJohn was chief executive officer of Pace, the suburban bus system, when he began teaching as an adjunct lecturer in the UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs in 1988. After retiring from Pace in 1998, he was named associate director of research in the college’s Urban Transportation Center.
The following year, with sponsorship from the Illinois Department of Transportation, he established the Metropolitan Transportation Support Initiative to conduct research and planning for area transportation agencies. He was awarded $6 million in grants and contracts, and led the center’s staff and students in projects to improve public transit, traffic congestion, and rail operations.
“He had the unique combination of grace and power that served us astoundingly well,” said Steve Schlickman, executive director of the Urban Transportation Center. “Joe was a scholar, a transportation leader, and a gentleman.”
DiJohn championed sustainable growth and more efficient movement of freight through the Chicago area to enhance economic development and job creation. He expanded UIC’s freight initiative with the support of CN Railroad.
He visited and studied transit systems throughout Europe, and recently conducted a World Bank-sponsored study of a proposed subway network for Bogota, Colombia.
He became a frequent source to local and national media on a wide range of transportation issues.
“Joe was a great orator and made his points effectively as a student, practitioner and researcher in transportation issues,” said Siim Soot, associate professor emeritus at the Urban Transportation Center. “He had an uncanny ability to inspire students and his faculty associates.”
Before his academic career, DiJohn was manager of the Regional Transportation Authoritys bus division. When the RTA was restructured from an operating agency to a planning agency in 1984, he supervised the creation of Pace and was named its first chief executive officer. He consolidated Pace’s private and municipal systems into an operation of more than 1,000 buses and 1,300 employees serving hundreds of thousands of riders.
In 1973, as the first chief executive officer of the North Suburban Mass Transit District (Nortran), he developed the fleet and operation that is now the Pace Northwest Division.
DiJohn graduated from Marquette University in 1965. He earned a master’s degree in business at DePaul University while working in market research for United Airlines, the Milwaukee Road, and the Rock Island Railroad.
He was twice elected president of the Chicago chapter of the Transportation Research Forum. During the 1970s, he was founding director and president of the Illinois Public Transit Association.
He is survived by Pam DiJohn, his wife of 44 years, and their two daughters, Julie DiJohn and Suzanne DiJohn.
A visitation will be held Friday, 3-9 p.m., at Smith-Corcoran Funeral Home, 185 E. Northwest Highway, Palatine. Services will be held Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at Holy Family Church, 2515 Palatine Road, Inverness, with a viewing in the chapel at 9:30 a.m.
The UIC Urban Transportation Center has established the Joe DiJohn Scholarship Fund at the University of Illinois Foundation in his honor. For information, please call (312) 996-4820.
I worked for Pace from 1995 thru 2002 to move to AZ only to move back to IL to be near family in 2007. I now reside at Saddlebrook Farms in Grayslake and currently work for NorthShore University Medical Group in Vernon Hills as a Patient Support Associate. I will be 71 in April but still going strong. I love my patients and the doctors I work with. Enjoy spending time with my 14 yr old grandson. Every time I see a Pace bus I think of the good times I had the 7 years I worked there. I miss Joe and all the other folks I knew at Pace, even though I do keep in touch with a few of the folks from there.
Kate Zenkus