Ingram's Magazine July 2022

B E T W E E N T H E L I N E S

City Hall took what he wanted. Having sacrificed his only revenue stream, bus fares, and now almost fully dependent on the city’s largesse for KCATA’s very existence, Makinen had no more leverage with the city than the residents of Wayne Miner had with the housing authority. Eventually, Makinen signed a “coop erative agreement” with Kansas City that reads like the letter the Ramseys found when Jon Benet went missing. Pay Kansas City $22.5 million for the street-lighting project over the next two years. Throw in $6 million to help extend the streetcar to the riverfront and add another $4 million for a Grand Boulevard bike and pedestrian bridge, and we’ll let your child live—that child being the KCATA. The smart money has Makinen pounding the pavement by the time this article appears in print. The real reason for his departure will be that he

embarrassed City Hall, but the given reason will be the poor performance of the KCATA. What’s left of the local newspaper has been working this angle for some time. In a recent article, The Star interviewed scores of disgruntled passengers who Free bus service? Sorry, but no one deserves “free” anything. That thinking means we have become a metro of grifters. complained of too few buses and too much unpredictability. Said the newspaper in a separate editorial, “Kansas Citians deserve public bus transit that is safe, reliable, convenient,

comfortable—and free.”

Sorry, comrades, but no one “des erves” free anything. Bus riders who don’t pay “deserve” good service no more than KCATA “deserves” its COVID money, no more than City Hall “deserves” KCATA’s money. In strip ping public service of its funding logic, we have become a metro of grifters. On a final note, harkening back to those public-service days of my past, the cable companies needed my per- mission to install cable in the public housing projects. I asked their rep how they could collect cable fees from people who don’t pay rent. “Simple,” he said. “We cut off their cable until they do pay.” People liked their cable enough to pay for it.

The views expressed in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Ingram’s Magazine. Jack Cashill , Senior Editor, Editorial @ Ingrams.com

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July 2022

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