Johnson County Transit – The JO

I’ve been riding the for years now and I’ve just started riding the Jo for a week now and I’ve never seen this meany disrespectful bus drivers. They bitched at me just for asking a simple question and they looked at me like i was sapose to know everything and there always at least 20 to 30 minutes late. After this work trip I’m never riding the Jo again.

I’ve been riding the JO pretty consistently since 2007. During that time, the JO has gone from an «okay» transit service to an excellent one. They’ve increased the number of runs they make each morning and evening, increased ridership, bought new buses, improved the park-​and-​rides and other stops and shelters, and increased their on-​time record. They do a good job of communicating with their riders through email (if you’re on their list) about route changes due to street closures, or delays because of weather challenges (rare). And riders and drivers are overall friendly.
My favorite recent improvement has been their ability to drive on the shoulder on I-​35 in Johnson County during high traffic times. Big savings in time!
For improvement, and this is minor, but these buses don’t seem to have thermostats in them. (Maybe no buses do.) And when the driver is focused on driving, they can lose sight of how warm the bus gets in winter when we all have coats on.
Overall, I was happy with the JO when I started riding, and I am very happy with it now. Highly recommended.

I have lived in JoCo for years, and finally had reason to try riding the Jo this year – when I fractured my arm on a ski trip. Immediately, I enjoyed the convenience and savings from using public transportation, & have continued to ride though I’m back to two working arms now.
The park & ride is close to home and the bus drops me right in front of work. Instead of sitting in my car in rush hour traffic, I can sit back and relax. I also get a lot of my work done on the bus and have to do less of it once I get home. I tell people it’s like finding time in your day! Riding barely takes longer than driving, and the bus can hop on the shoulder and keep moving past the line of traffic.
My company subsidizes our monthly passes, so I get a considerable discount. I save on gas and there’s less wear & tear on my car. And I feel good about doing something more responsible for the environment.
The drivers are helpful and friendly, as are the other professionals who ride. When I’ve contacted Transit through Twitter I receive fast and friendly responses. All of these things make it an easy decision to continue riding the Jo.
My suggestions for improvement would be to do more effective advertising about the benefits of riding, to increase ridership, so that more routes and schedules can be added. But I am a fan for sure.

I don’t really know how to describe the feeling of being stood up by the JO. Maybe it’s like being stood up by ridiculously dumb girl with tons of zits that dresses unironically like its 1991. It’s actually happened a couple of times to me. First, it happened in Lawrence as their web site, Google Maps, and the bus driver apparently weren’t coordinated with each other (huuuuh?). It’s kinda a big deal when it’s late, you’re tired, and you’re waiting at 19^th/​Haskell. It almost happened again on the Plaza. The driver ignored me at the designated stop so I chased the bus until it stopped at a non-​designated stop. Most recently, the JO stranded me at Crown Center without another bus until the morning. The driver departed from the designated stop well before the schedule indicated. It’s not like I’m being stranded at 11:30 PM after having too many drinks at the Zoo Bar– these «last bus» options depart, sadly, at 5:40 PM. Careful if you have to stay late at the office or the JO driver has a lead foot… you might end up sleeping in Washington Square Park.
I’m savvy about mass transit and use it all the time. I don’t feel at all comfortable relying on the JO. To be so entirely scatterbrained and unreliable about such important things as schedules is completely inexcusable. Because the JO has such a pathetic amount of riders I’m confident these asinine mistakes haven’t been an issue. The JO is run as a small commuter bus service between the city (downtown/​crown center) and various points in the county. This fact makes the bus undesirable as a transit option for most Johnson Countians (or reverse commute Kansas Citians for that matter). Only recently has the system made strides to diversify and operate new routes (K10 Connector, new 75^th Street service) to draw more than just a trickle cult riders.
So these issues put the JO smack dab in the middle of the worst of the worst, barf, hate pit, DIE DIE DIE categories. However, I will freely admit the JO has some of the nicest, most Midwestern drivers you’ll find on any transit system. They are worth riding it alone. Because the ridership numbers are so low (seriously, JO ridership is so incredibly sad it makes ANY Metro route look like the red line in Chicago) the drivers are able to be incredibly kind, approachable, patient and helpful. They will call other buses to help you make transfers, chitchat, go out of their way to help riders. For example, when 2 bike stalls in the front of the bus were both taken… the driver actually let a biker take his bike in the bus which is something to behold. Probably against protocol, but surely a sign of a mad cool bus driver that wants to help riders.
The JO must be run by a bunch of people that have never ridden mass transit. This has to be true because if they live in JoCo mass transit wouldn’t take them from their homes to JO HQ. It seems like they’re trying, but just don’t get it. You can’t run a bus 3X in the morning and 3X in the evening and expect people to take you seriously. You can’t completely botch your schedules, leave people stranded and then tweet back that you fixed whatever went wrong. You can’t create one new route and give it multiple names for the different times of day it runs There’s a big reason no one rides the JO and I found a good clip to sum it all up: