Opinions about KC public transportation? (Overland, Jackson: rental car, appointed, apartment complex)

[HometoGeorgia]

Hi everybody. I'm doing some research for a friend of mine that is moving to KC but will not have a car right away and we're both curious now as to the general opinions about the public transportation system in KC. Would you describe it is a good commuter system? Passable? Hit or miss? Extensive?

We don't need specific what bus goes where type answers, just wondering about the overall sentiment toward it and whether their more positive or negative in nature.

Thank you.

Edit: And I did see the light rail threads, but we're more interested in the system as it stands now.

[xenokc]

Uh oh, this thread isn't going to go too well.

Short answer, no, public transit in KC is not very effective overall compared to major cities, though there aren't too many metros of 2M that have good public transit. KC's is currently limited to bus only. The coverage of bus is actually not too bad and the buses themselves are nice and modern but most lines don't run as frequently as they should. As one who rides the bus, it works fine for me between home/work but this is a sprawled city/metro where having a car is convenient, parking is very easy, usually free or crazy cheap and there is almost no traffic. Is hard to get a focus for solid city/metro wide transit when having a car is too easy and hassle free.

My younger brother moved here from Philly w/out a car and did fine for the 6 or so years he lived here. He borrowed mine if needing to go to the burbs. It can work if you work/live in the city core but owning a car is more convenient and relatively cheap (compared to large cities).

This is the best line to live along in the city if not having a car...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1238514/pics/bus/maxmwk.gif

Here is the bus system site...
www.kcata.org

Looks like the most realistic improvements down the road are a streetcar downtown, commuter rail from burbs on existing freight lines, and more MAX (BRT) bus lines.

[HometoGeorgia]

Thank you, I hope it can stay a friendly thread.

The city looks very walkable as near as I can tell from all the pictures I've seen. I'm not sure about bicycles.

I think the only thing that has mystified us is why so little public transportation on the KCK side when those regions are an integral part of the metro area. Does KCK have their own system? I thought somebody said Overland Park has nothing at all which is a surprise for a city that size.

I guess we looked at it more from the viewpoint that if we were a major corporation and "green" was important to us, would any of the existing infrastructure meet our needs or attract future jobs/investment?

P.S. I live in Seattle, somewhere that's had an award winning bus system for decades, but is beginning to go in the "max" direction as well, in fact their voting on it this month and it's very controversial because they will be diverting a large percentage of service from elsewhere to make it work. With falling tax revenues, they just don't have the money to continue to operate the hub/spoke system without raising taxes. My neighborhood alone would lose 3 main bus routes, but I'd only be 6 blocks from the "max" line. I don't see it working here, the equivalent of 4 busloads of people crammed into 1? Are these max lines crowded? How often do they run?

[xenokc]

KCK bus is part of the same system as KCMO, which is shown on the site above. Overland Park and Johnson County have The Jo bus system, which isn't much.

Johnson County Transit - The JO

KCMO was developed on a pedestrian scale. It's old enough that the core was developed before cars existed. Used to have a massive streetcar system and even 3rd largest cable car system. Mythology says GM bought out the street cars to shut them down for buses. Might be true.

Most of the buses take bikes. There has been a significant increase in bike commuters over the last few years. KC isn't strong with dedicated bike paths (in the city core) but I haven't had any issues.

Anyway, KC does have several pockets of functional pedestrian areas, mostly tied together by the Main MAX bus line...
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1238514/pics/bus/maxmwk.gif

[kcmo]

xenokc summed it up.

KC has two huge problems. The state line and lack of funding. The state line keeps the system fragmented, which really is no excuse as there are transit systems all over the country that cross state and county lines as if they didn't exist, but not in KC. KC is way to small to have several different transit systems serving it. There is also no dedicated transit funding source in metro KC at any level other than KCMO. The counties and states don't have a transit fund. So the MO suburbs have to constantly find city money to keep what little service they have to their cities. That's why there is no fixed route service in any metro area city unless the city pays the ATA for it. The KS side breaks it up even further having "The Bus" as well as the ATA in KCK and "The JO" in JoCo. It's a real mess. It should all be dealt with at the county or regional level. I'm not sure there is similar setup elsewhere in the country.

The funny thing is there is a bistate entity set up for metro transit that even has appointed representatives of every county, including some that don't have transit. Leavenworth and Cass (which are not even served by any transit) have the same amount of representation as Jackson (where 99% of the transit ridership is.). Again, it's a real mess.

Having said all that. The bus system in the core of the city is really not that bad. KC has a pretty modern fleet of buses and they traverse the north/south corridor of the central city quite regularly, but they could definitely be more frequent. But it's doable. I used the bus system in KC for 25 years. Even after moving to the burbs, I used the system on a very regular basis in the central city.

KC has decent, but not great commuter bus routes. While it's sad that a county as large as JoCo has almost no fixed bus routes and the ones they do have don't flow into Missouri well, they do have a solid commuter bus system and several of the MO suburbs have decent commuter bus lines as well. The only problem is they could use a few more trips and they really need to think about upgrading to commuter coach buses. Low floor city transit buses on long commuter routes just don't work too well.

The KC system is small though. For a metro of 2 million, KC should have 400-500 buses. It barely has 200.

I think you could live in KC without a car, especially if KC has zipcar (do they?), if they don't then I would probably get a cheap car or room with somebody that has one.

[HometoGeorgia]

Ok thanks, those are all very good explanations, and I'm glad something is available at least, I'll pass along the info to him. Incidentally, he'll only be without a car for a month or so.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by kcmo

xenokc summed it up.

KC has two huge problems. The state line and lack of funding. The state line keeps the system fragmented, which really is no excuse as there are transit systems all over the country that cross state and county lines as if they didn't exist, but not in KC. KC is way to small to have several different transit systems serving it. There is also no dedicated transit funding source in metro KC at any level other than KCMO. The counties and states don't have a transit fund. So the MO suburbs have to constantly find city money to keep what little service they have to their cities. That's why there is no fixed route service in any metro area city unless the city pays the ATA for it. The KS side breaks it up even further having "The Bus" as well as the ATA in KCK and "The JO" in JoCo. It's a real mess. It should all be dealt with at the county or regional level. I'm not sure there is similar setup elsewhere in the country.

The funny thing is there is a bistate entity set up for metro transit that even has appointed representatives of every county, including some that don't have transit. Leavenworth and Cass (which are not even served by any transit) have the same amount of representation as Jackson (where 99% of the transit ridership is.). Again, it's a real mess.

Having said all that. The bus system in the core of the city is really not that bad. KC has a pretty modern fleet of buses and they traverse the north/south corridor of the central city quite regularly, but they could definitely be more frequent. But it's doable. I used the bus system in KC for 25 years. Even after moving to the burbs, I used the system on a very regular basis in the central city.

KC has decent, but not great commuter bus routes. While it's sad that a county as large as JoCo has almost no fixed bus routes and the ones they do have don't flow into Missouri well, they do have a solid commuter bus system and several of the MO suburbs have decent commuter bus lines as well. The only problem is they could use a few more trips and they really need to think about upgrading to commuter coach buses. Low floor city transit buses on long commuter routes just don't work too well.

The KC system is small though. For a metro of 2 million, KC should have 400-500 buses. It barely has 200.

I think you could live in KC without a car, especially if KC has zipcar (do they?), if they don't then I would probably get a cheap car or room with somebody that has one.

Sadly no, bc I think ZipCar and the like is SUCH a good idea.

[xenokc]

I think Enterprise or someone offers a way to casually and cost effectively rent when needed, though not the way ZipCar works. Haven't really looked into it. ZipCar isn't really less expensive than a full rental car, can be over $70 a day. But is probably more convenient to access.

There are several car rental places along the Main MAX line.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by xenokc

I think Enterprise or someone offers a way to casually and cost effectively rent when needed, though not the way ZipCar works. Haven't really looked into it. ZipCar isn't really less expensive than a full rental car, can be over $70 a day. But is probably more convenient to access.

There are several car rental places along the Main MAX line.

But the idea behind ZipCar is that you don't have to rent it for a whole day. You can pick one up and run to a dr's appt in the burbs or to the grocery store for a big trip. For weekend getaways, a rental car will always be the cheaper option, but having ZipCar available is super nice. Hopefully they'll expand.

[jason87x]

Well there's simply little demand for public transit. You can get places more quickly here by car. All the talk about building light rail and such has come from a few outspoken liberals who want everyone out of their cars. I think those people should try living in North Korea, which is basically car free unless you are very high up in the government. I also think a lot of the sentiment is that they want OTHER people to use transit, so they can have the roads to themselves. I've never seen these liberals actually use the transit that we DO have, they prefer to whine about it and petition to get Johnson Countians to pay the tab for their light rail ideas. The exception being a few very liberal activist students at UMKC that I knew that were/are so broke that they just use their bikes to get everywhere. Ironically they didn't whine about my gas guzzling car when they needed a ride to Lawrence.

But since your friend is without a car (for now), KCMO itself does have a pretty well developed bus system with some good routes. Just make sure they live within walking distance of a stop (duh). Others have posted the MAX line, which is a good idea. The JO also runs and can be good for commuting at least, and you can transfer to KCMO's buses. But since JoCo has very very few bus riders, the stops here will necessarily be more spread out. I know of a stop at 75th and Quivira, though the huge amount of apartments near that stop are shady at best. But I was a crossing guard at that intersection for several months and saw quite a few people (that I knew actually) use the JO to go both downtown and to JCCC (pronounced 'juco'). Of course if your friend lands a job that is both near an apartment complex and a decent strip mall with stores to get them by (possible though not common), that would be lucky so that they could walk, though I wouldn't walk outside anywhere during our up to 6 months of winter.

And seriously kcmo, if you like Denver so much for it's public transit, why aren't you living there?