New Bus Rider Concludes KC Buses Ain't So Bad!

Nice column from a reader at the Star about his first time using the MAX.

Initially I dealt with the fear that the bus would be dirty, noisy and crowded with “people who rode the bus.”

What a pleasant surprise to be proven wrong. If only I had opened up my commuting horizons earlier.

A window into the lives and habits of people in my own neighborhood, as well as the wide variety of those in neighborhoods between my own and the office has blossomed.

I had a short conversation this weekend with a gentleman who used to live downtown, but now lives in the suburbs telling me about how he used to ride the bus to attend Kings games at Municipal, but he would "never ride the bus now" for it was far too dangerous. When I asked him the last time he rode the bus, he said it was decades. So how did he know it was dangerous?

I encourage everyone to at least give the bus a chance, particularly when arriving at some of Kansas City's larger events. Yes, it could be more convenient than it is now, but any preconceived notions about lack of safety, smelly riders, or being hassled by poor people will be pretty quickly dismissed. And you may find avoiding dealing with bad drivers to be a welcome experience.

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.