Knowing your target audience

A light rail initiative passed in Kansas City yesterday.  It's a $975 milion or so proposal for light rail that also includes gondollas and routes to nowhere.  It passed pretty overwhelmingly.

Since I moved to Kansas City 11 years ago, people have been talking about putting in light rail. However, the overall consensus at city hall was that the public didn't want to pay as much as was necessary for a light rail line...so they've put in rapid-transit bus lines and all kinds of things to try to get people to use mass transit.  Meanwhile, every person I've met in Kansas City over the past 11 years that didn't work at city hall has favored some type of light rail system.  Bus systems are hard to figure out -- but you always know where a light rail route is going because it can't leave the tracks.

But in their infinite wisdom, city hall has stuck with the "knowledge" that people didn't want light rail.  The downtown population has tripled in the past 10 years.  Yet they said people still didn't want it.  New arts districts have popped up, they're building a new arena and entertainment area downtown -- still, they say people weren't interested.

Finally, some crackpot in Virginia puts a light rail proposal on the ballot.  About 2/3 of the proposal is pretty good.  The 1/3 featuring gondollas and discussing how this would be financed are bunk.  The whole plan was done without any type of feasibility study.  It passed yesterday with 53% of the vote.  Now city hall is stuck with a bad plan because people DESPERATELY WANTED SOMEONE TO DO SOMETHING - and nobody outside of a quack in Virginia would do anything.   So they voted for it.  And the people at City Hall are sitting around scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do now.

I'm amused.

We live in a world of 2-way communication. It's never been easier to listen to our customers or constituents...and they WANT to be heard.  If you're not listening, they'll turn to someone who is.

Comments

[Mark Forsythe]

Glad you're so amused Brent. NOT!

The mayor and council are scrambling to replace Mark Funkhouser before the new council takes office. Something tells me they won't be so motivated to deal with this little issue. We have our work cut out for us!