The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority is advertising the cost-effectiveness of commuting by bus at a time when gasoline is selling for north of $3.50 a gallon. The trouble is, fewer than 20 percent of the jobs in the Kansas City metropolitan area are reachable in 90 minutes via public transit.
Job access (or lack thereof) is one of the reasons that Kansas City ranked 90th out of 100 U.S. cities in a recent study of transit coverage. In a typical metropolitan area, residents can reach about 30 percent of jobs via transit, according to the Brookings Institution. In Kansas City, only 18 percent of jobs are reachable.
Kansas City also lags in the share of working-age residents who live near a transit stop: 47 percent, versus the the national average of 69 percent. Median wait times for transit vehicles are four minutes longer here than in an average city.
But you know all this, right? Folks just visiting -- including pro-football star Chad Ochocinco -- quickly come to the conclusion that Kansas City is cruel to people who don't own cars.
The problem seems insolvable because the metropolitan area set a course for sprawl before a coherent transit plan could be developed. As a result, communities are too spread apart for, say, a fancy light-rail system to make much sense financially.
It's a chicken-and-egg dilemma, and the individual who figures out a way to get people out of their cars in substantial numbers and at a reasonable price should be recognized with a giant statue melted from Clay Chastain's clipboards.
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I used to do the Park & Drive at Indian Springs. To walk and then ride the Leav. bus requires me to be up by 4 a.m.
I still ride occasionally the bus.
But the system sucks.
Rode the old KC-LEAV bus that went from Leavenworth to KCMO in the 60's.
For the way the Lexus drinks gas, bus is way cheaper. Especially if my KCMO parking meter screws up & I get a $35 ticket.
16 minutes? There's no way to be polite about this: you're full of shit, pal. Feel free to prove me wrong - if you can make it from my house to my job in 16 minutes walking and taking the bus (no bikes - I'm not crazy enough to ride a bike in this town) I'll post a public apology. If you can't do it, YOU get to post the apology.
Deal?
Mommadillo you are just being lazy... It would take you 16 minutes to ride the bus from 39th and state line to near the Uptown. Check your facts before you bash the bus. The residents of this city dont ride KCATA cause of the stigma of the bus. I live in the plaza and work in Leawood and can get to work in 45 minutes using the bus and riding my bike less than three miles
Riding the bus does NOT mean you are trash. I am a police officer and I ride the bus everyday. It saves me money, and it helps out the enviroment! There is nothing wrong with riding the bus.
& I thought the Transit in Washoe County, Nevada & King County, Washington were bad.
you seem confused
the hole point of joco is to keep TRASH like the kind that use public transportaion fucking OUT
Busses need to work for KC and stay the hell out of joco
Jordan - I agree with most of the things you say. I would point out that building the streetcars out to the airport would probably not be feasible (it's SO FAR), as compared to running it from the river, to say 75th and Wornell. Even in New York, they don't run the subway all the way to LaGuardia airport. And yes, I really hope the Sanders plan gets moved forward, along with a north-south streetcar.
What kills me is between the aging baby boomer population (they're not going to drive forever, right?), the rising cost of gasoline, global warming, and the obesity epidemic this is a total no-brainer.
Jesus Christ, we need a good public transportation system in Kansas City! It's embarrassing how poorly we compare to other metropolitan areas in the U.S., even more so when compared to the tram, streetcar, and subway lines of cities in Canada and Europe. You can glide effortlessly anywhere you want. Our retarded city planners keep the sprawl going for sure--I witness how awful it is in Independence everyday. However, we can implement a worthwhile public transit system here, but it probably needs to consist of a variety of types. I love the urban streetcar idea for River Market to Union Station/Crown Ctr, but it should expand to the airport (duh!) and probably further throughout the city. Buses work great for surrounding areas/neighborhoods where a streetcar or light rail wouldn't make sense. The downtown streetcar lines and expanded Bus Rapid Transit lines need to connect to a regional rail system using existing freight railways that County Executive Mike Sanders has been pushing. This seems like the beginnings of a wonderful asset to our city... and one which properly salutes our past success with streetcar lines. Streetcars have worked before, surely we can make it work again and make our city so much more lovely in the process!
At it's peak, the trolley service had more miles of track than any other american city except for San Fran. There was even an inter-city line out to St. Joesph! The most amazing part was that it wasn't publicly funded - it was a private, for-profit business. But now we have gas nearly $4 a gallon, and more roads per capita than almost any other city.
Hey, that's progress, right?
That's very true. When I lived in Midtown in the early 1990s was when it was easiest for me to get around, because I worked in Midtown or downtown and was only a block or two from the bus station.
When I lived in my first apartment in western Independence in the mid-1980s, I worked three miles away at Blue Ridge Mall. Because I had to dress professionally, I kept a locker in the employee lounge and walked to work most days. Sometimes I got lifts from friends who worked at the mall too. But when it got really cold or really hot, I would take the bus to work. I had to ride all the way downtown, then take another bus back out to the mall. I love to read or it would have driven me crazy. LOL
In 1993 I was profiled in a Kansas City Star story about living without a car. I bused it and hoofed it from 1987-1989 and from 1990-1994. I have had one ever since. I live in northeastern Wyandotte County and work on College Boulevard. I would take a bus to work if I could; actually I enjoyed it all those years. But there are no routes that would get me to work on time or let me stay late enough to make a full work day, and it would add at least three hours to my daily commute. No thanks.
When it comes to mass transit, the system needs to work for BOTH sides
of the state line. Johnson County isn't just some giant bunch of rich
folks with jobs downtown - a lot of the people on JoCo live there
because that's where their job is. And there are a lot of people on the
MO side that work in JoCo.
If one lives from the river market to waldo, the bus makes sense to and from work. I don't think it has much to do with JoCo not coordinating their bus system with the rest of the metro. It comes down to what we as citizens living on the MO side of the state line want in a transit system. We have to make an investment in something good that will last for decades. Then perhaps the folks in JoCo will follow. Ultimately, they are the ones who will suffer the most for the expensive gas prices in the future. Who's gonna want to live and work in a place where driving is the only option when gas is $6/gallon? There's a breaking point, and eventually, everybody on either side of the state line will find it.
We just moved downtown from the suburbs, and we are selling our second car. A typical 5-minute drive might take 10 or 15 minutes on the bus, and yes, sometimes we might have to walk a couple of blocks. I guess we're one of the 18 percent who can put the bus service to good use. I'll also guess we're one of the 18 percent of Kansas Citians who aren't fat-asses, either.
History, KC history even, shows at one time we had a vibrant trolley service and a significant bus presence. The city *genus's* aka planners stole all those monies for other pet projects that they could put their names on. LOL So now we live with the result. They won't be getting any more of mine to steal in KC's future ;)
I once checked into taking the bus to replace my then 23 minute commute that was a straight shot down Watkns Drive from home (downtown) out to Marion Park (Bannister and 435).
The answer?
1hour 53minutes-EACH WAY!!!
Plus a helluva lot of walking.
With those types of trip times gas will have to hit somewhere around $75 per gallon before the bus breaks even with the value of my time.
Its all about the State Line. Since there is no coordinated land use planning we will never have the density to support public transit, or the funding to build it and hope it will draw density. Sprawling Johnson and suburban Jackson counties will never support funding transit in the urban areas that might actually make sense and encourge density rather than sprawl.
This is caused by two things:
1) JoCo decided to run their own bus service instead of buying into the MARC / KCATA solution. As such, 1/4 of the metro is entirely inaccessible by the other 3/4
2) Developers think it's great to put developments well outside of where transit already exists, putting new jobs outside of the reach of anyone who depends on public transit.
For 82% of residents public transportation is infeasible; for another 16% it's undesireable; and there you have the 2% for whom it is an absolute necessity. And there you have the story of public transporation in the KC metro.
I live near KU Med Center and work over by the Uptown. It's almost exactly two and one half miles from my house to work - takes less than ten minutes to drive unless there are extenuating circumstances like a snowstorm. (the longest it's ever taken was a half-hour, during one of last winter's blizzards)
It would take me a minimum of an hour to take the bus, plus I'd have to walk five blocks to get to the bus stop. I could actually walk to work faster than riding the bus.
Back in the '60s and '70s, before the ATA cut all their routes to almost nothing, you could actually get around on the bus. Not any more. And given that public transportation around here is considered something that primarily benefits the poor and minorities, I don't see that changing any time soon.
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