[Missouri-l] KC's lousy bus service stems in part from City Hall's lousy budgeting

[Chip Hailey]

KC's lousy bus service stems in part from City Hall's lousy budgeting
By
David Martin
 Thursday, Sep 16 2010
Shawnoahia Farr sits on a bench at a bus stop, her face a snarl. She has an appointment
at KU Medical Center, and she's behind schedule.
Farr lives less than five miles from the hospital. If she owned a car, the trip would
take minutes. Farr, however, relies on public transportation, which means delays,
transfers and the company of noisy street philosophers.
Forty-five minutes after walking out her front door, Farr is stuck at the transit
center at 39th Street and Troost, waiting for a westbound bus that runs three times
an hour at midday. The bus she picked up near her home was late, she says, causing
her to miss the connection to KU Med she wanted.
A frequent rider, Farr says the bus company, the Kansas City Area Transportation
Authority, has room to improve. "They're some sloppy-ass operators," she says.
Farr's blunt opinion is pretty common. The ATA does not rank among the city's most
admired institutions. Praise for the agency tops out with the grudging acknowledgement
that it's probably doing the best it can. Ron McLinden, a member of the grassroots
Transit Action Network, says the ATA has been "pretty frugal" with its resources,
the bureaucratic equivalent of being said to have a nice personality.
The ATA's homeliness makes it easy to assume that it's run by a bunch of people who
couldn't cut it at Greyhound. (Diminutive and a lackluster public speaker, ATA General
Manager Mark Huffer doesn't leave a room with the impression that he's a dynamic
executive.) But the agency faces a unique set of problems.
The recession, for one, has forced the ATA to amp up its frugality. The agency relies
on sales taxes, and when people have less money to buy things, the ATA's budget whimpers
along with them.
Buses are also losing money to developers with tax-increment-financing agreements
with Kansas City, Missouri. TIF deals allow developers to skim sales taxes in certain
areas of the city. TIF areas keep expanding, which means less money for public transit.
The ATA might be able to withstand the recession and subsidy-hungry developers without
a noticeable crimp in service. Hard times and an economic-development scheme are
not the things putting a dent in the agency's budget, however.
The buses are also getting dinged by the city itself.
Kansas City, Missouri, collects a 0.5-percent sales tax for public transportation.
The tax began in 1971, six years after the ATA was established as the single transportation
agency for the metropolitan area.
A sales tax collected in the name of public transportation, you might think, would
be delivered to a public transportation agency with a minimum of fuss. In fact, the
city keeps a portion of the money - an increasingly large portion of the money.
The public transportation tax is expected to raise $29.6 million in the current fiscal
year. The city plans to withhold $5.4 million, which is something more than a mere
handling fee. William Wilson, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1287,
which represents 672 ATA workers, calls the city's rake a "slush fund."
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.
So what's the city doing with the money? Plugging other holes in its budget.
The main recipient of the public transportation tax has been the city's Public Works
Department. Public Works is staying partly true to the spirit of the tax by using
the money for transportation-related functions, such as street and traffic operations.
But the number of Public Works endeavors to tap into the tax is growing.
In each of the last two budget cycles, the city has taken $2.6 million from the public-transportation
tax to balance the books of the traffic-signals unit. "That's the one we landed on,"
Mark Thoma-Perry, a city budget officer, says.
Of course, the tax is not just for transportation but also for public
 transportation. So here's the city's logic on that point: Buses rely on traffic
lights, so let's use mass-transportation revenue to keep the signals working!
The ATA, meanwhile, is hurting. In the summer of 2009, citing a $9 million budget
shortfall, the agency instituted service cuts and fare hikes.
Riders noticed the difference. Buses on popular routes, including the 39th Street
line that Farr uses to get to KU Med, arrive less frequently than they did in the
past. Even the MAX, the "rapid" Main Street bus that's designed to appeal to more
than just the carless, took a hit.
Other routes have disappeared entirely, creating havoc in the lives of people who
rely on public transit. Hazeline Clay, a legally blind resident, moved out of her
rented home on Kansas City's South Side after the Longview connector was discontinued.
Her new place is within reach of the Blue Ridge line. "Cutting the bus routes really
hurt a lot of people," she tells me.
Frustrated by the service cuts, transit advocates are beginning to push back at city
officials for gobbling up the 0.5-percent sales tax.
Members of the Transit Action Network are meeting with members of the City Council
over the next few weeks. One of the points they want to make is that Kansas City
gets the public transit it pays for.
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