KAKE's Jennifer Bocchieri did a story Thursday about the Wichita Transit System asking the city for $210,000 just to pay for increased fuel prices.  You know what I think?  Wichita's Bus system doesn't just need money.  It needs to be completely overhauled.

Some of you may remember, I blogged months and months ago about mass transit in Wichita.  In that blog, I stated that mass transit in this city is broken.  It isn't user friendly.  It isn't effective.  In fact, I would venture to say that Wichita's bus system isn't just broken, it's worthless to the common citizen and I'm going to prove it.

I'll use myself as an example.  The closest bus stop to my home is more than two miles away.  I can't even ride a bike to that bus stop because THERE'S NOTHING THERE!  Just a simple sign, that's it... not even a bench.  Even if I rode a bike there and chained it to said sign, I seriously doubt said bike would still be there when I returned, so that would be pointless.

Ok, let's not even use a bike and, instead, just walk to the bus stop.  I suppose I'd have to plan 30 minutes for the 2-mile walk to the bus stop, then get on the South Main bus.  That route doesn't connect with any other lines, meaning I'd need to ride downtown to the transit center in order to catch the bus that does go to where I need it to.  According to the city's schedule posted on its website, the trip from where I'd step onto the bus to the transit center is 45 minutes.  Wow, my commute so far has lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes and I'm only halfway to work.

The KAKE studios are at 13th and West Street.  I see there's no bus that goes anywhere close to that intersection straight from the downtown transit center, so I need to get on the West Central bus and ride it to Central and West Street.  Allotted time?  15 minutes.  Total commute time is now at 1-hour, 30 minutes.

This brings us to another problem.  I suppose that once I got off the West Central bus I could step on the Meridian/West St. loop bus and ride it one more mile up to 13th Street and be dropped off right at the KAKE front door.  But I wouldn't consider that cost effective if I were going to do this every day.  I'd have to pay another $1.25 for that mile.  Otherwise, walk the mile and tack on even more time to my already way-too-lengthy commute.  Stretch that over a month and that becomes an expensive mile, if you ask me.

Oh, but wait!  I just realized I've wasted about 30 minutes even trying to think this through because Wichita's transit system doesn't even operate past 6:45 p-m on weekdays or 5:45 p-m on Saturday's.  And there are no buses on Sunday's!  I work second shift, Wednesday through Sunday!  Another example as to why Wichita's transit system is useless to the common citizen.  All second- and third-shifters are left out.

Whew!  I'm tired after all this blogging and I'm not even close to getting out all my thoughts on this subject.  So I'll save the rest for my next posting.  In the meantime, I want to hear what YOU think.  In my opinion, revamping mass transit in Wichita is vital to our city's existence... and extremely important in getting people to reduce their "carbon footprint" by leaving their cars at home.