The Pitch: KC's Bus Service is Pretty Lousy

The Pitch steps up this week with a pretty decent expose on how the city continues to raid the coffers of the Kansas City Area Transit Authority to the tune of $5.4 million, over one-sixth of the tax revenues generated by the 0.5 percent sales tax that is supposed to be dedicated to public transit.

By any name, it keeps growing. The city's 18.3-percent cut follows a pattern of steady increases. In the 2003-04 fiscal year, the city kept only 4.6 percent of the sales tax....

An accountant by training, Rogers has put together a spreadsheet indicating that the city has withheld $22 million from the ATA during the past eight years.

We keep hearing how Kansas City should not build a light rail because people don't even use the bus system. Well people aren't going to use the bus system if its perpetually underfunded, inconvenient, and doesn't go everywhere riders need it to go.

It also begs the question of whether the KCATA might be better of serving as its own political unit, raising its own funding through a sales tax where it can keep all of its revenues, and being the truly regional authority it needs to be for this to be a healthy metro area.