Question 1 on Kansas City’s April 8 ballot is whether to continue a 3/8 cent sales tax in Kansas City, which has come to provide about a third of the current Kansas City Area Transportation Authority budget.  KCATA General Manager Mark Huffer warns that if revenue from the tax is lost, KCATA would have to cut their service 40-50%.

But why do we keep funding the same crummy bus service at any level?  Huffer claims the reason bus service in Kansas City is bottom of the barrel is because KCATA is not funded regionally, like Mark Funkhouser wants the Zoo to be.

  The real reason Kansas City has famously nominal bus service is because KCATA is so thoroughly mismanaged by Huffer, who like George Bush seems to have little or no idea what a bad job he does.  And surely the main reason Huffer - and probably most if not all of KCATA management - do so poorly is because they're not KCATA riders.

  We know they're not, because if they were, there's no way they would allow the buses to operate the way they do.  As if it should be considered "last resort" or "alternative" (or let's face it: too risky altogether), the Kansas City Metro bus system is clearly run by people who would never choose personally to use it for actually getting around town - and wisely so.

    Ever try to complain to the KCATA?  You phone or email the Regional Call Center, report your problem, receive a possible explanation or apology, and that's it.  The people who answer the phones have no authority to rectify any problems, and no obligation to report them to whatever part of the KCATA might be responsible.

They are there simply to listen, or look information up on the KCATA website, already available to anyone with Internet access.  KCATA goes by the unwritten "Drivers Before Riders" law, which essentially means faregivers are SOL at KCATA.

  KCATA wastes money by employing sullen, arrogant, angry drivers.  KCATA wastes money by employing complaint "handlers" who do nothing but fuel resentment toward KCATA by pretending they're doing anything for riders.  KCATA wastes money by employing impotent management, alienating riders by utterly ignoring their input.

  And KCATA wastes money on expensive signage that's more annoying than helpful:  If you're downtown and you want to ride the MAX south back to Crown Center where you're staying, which of the randomly-located MAX stops are southbound?  MAX stops only declare their location - already knowable from street signs all around.  You don't find out which direction the stop is for until you walk up and read the digital display.  While you're bouncing around from possible stop to stop, the next southbound MAX zooms by a block north, heading east.

  KCATA busdrivers habitually stay on their cellphones for personal calls, yet never bother to communicate with other drivers or KCATA to help coordinate system performance.  They shouldn't be talking on cellphones while driving anyway, but when a bus is running late, no driver ever bothers to advise buses on the connecting lines, so they know to wait an extra minute.

  The idea of one busdriver alerting another on behalf of riders - other than by honking loudly a few times as the other driver is pulling away at a connecting stop - is so unrealistic, it's almost comical to imagine.  Would a raging bull be nice to a worm? 

  Buses inevitably run late from time to time, but all KCATA buses routinely speed ahead and often arrive at stops well before the time scheduled.  KCATA's Sharon Teague will tell you buses are supposed to run as scheduled, and this is so important to KCATA that the buses are monitored by GPS, and by management in stealthy white cars, usually seen taking a break.

Then if you complain the buses run early, Teague advises you she will inform Manager of Road Operations, Tommie Hill.  Mr. Hill, of course, already knows the buses run early, because he has GPS and well-paid spies in white cars to tell him, right?  But he is evidently powerless to get buses to run on time or late, and probably gave up trying years ago. 

  Early-running buses always miss some on-time riders; in bad weather, with 30 minutes to an hour before the next bus, most people, for example first-timers, will spend that half-hour or more learning to despise the KCATA, especially when you complain to them over and over, and the buses just keep on running early. Drivers Before Riders is the real rule at KCATA.

The way the buses are scheduled and fit together to make connections by the KCATA is a wonderment of confusion.  Bus lines with long intervals between runs are frequently set to arrive one or two minutes too late to make connections with other buses that run rarely, causing long layovers for no discernible reason.

Watch a MAX bus along Main, and you'll often see an empty 57 bus tagging along right behind, because even though these lines run pretty much the same route, KCATA brilliantly teams them close together every 20 minutes, instead of staggering them separately every 10 minutes.

Short intervals between main corridor buses would make busriding truly practical, with no schedule-checking necessary, and virtually no worry about whether your bus is running early or late.  But that could never be a genuine KCATA concern.

So before you vote yes on Question 1 on April 8, remember how KCATA throws away your money now, and think about what could happen if the measure were defeated.  Forced to cut costs, the City might fire Huffer and hire someone who owns no car, has ridden the bus for years, and knows how to cut the crap.

Instead of scratching his shaved head and continually whining about how difficult getting light rail will be, the new KCATA General Manager and CEO gets behind it for real, and within the decade, Kansas City's nastyass, inbred, indifferent "Metro" bus system is but a blot on our past, like Tom Pendergast.

Let's vote no on 1 and make Huffer suffer, like the thousands of riders his buses-for-drivers have left out in the cold over the past 8 years.

Tell us what you think. Write Spectrum at editor@mcckc.edu.

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