<table> </table> I was considering whether to take out a second mortgage for my next fill-up when the woman one pump over started in about the high price of gas.</p><p>&#8220;Remember when it was 70 cents a gallon?&#8221; she said.</p><p>&#8220;Lady, I&#8217;m such a geezer,&#8221; I started to say, &#8220;that I can remember when it was half that,&#8221; but she cut me off.</p><p>&#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t be so bad,&#8221; she said, &#8220;if we only had some mass transit.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s the thing about living in Johnson County. JoCo has a bus system, but that&#8217;s like saying the Royals have an offense.</p><p>And the prospect of either getting much better anytime soon seems hopeless.</p><p>&#8220;The reason is money,&#8221; County Commissioner John Segale said.</p><p>But that&#8217;s not entirely true. It&#8217;s not just for want of cash that Johnson County has a third-rate bus system. It&#8217;s the political establishment that won&#8217;t demand better.</p><p>Roads? Highway interchanges? Somehow, the politicians always find money for more concrete and asphalt out in Sprawlville.</p><p>But for a county that boasts about its quality of life, the lousy bus system is embarrassing even to those who run it.</p><p>&#8220;As a Johnson County resident, you have to work really, really hard to ride the JO,&#8221; says the system&#8217;s deputy director, Chuck Ferguson.</p><p>I ride it once or twice a month. The buses are comfortable. But the system shuts down on weekends and is focused mostly on shuttling workers to and from downtown during the morning and evening rush hours.</p><p>Need to get somewhere in the middle of the day? Buses then are rarer than a vegan at the Lenexa Barbecue Battle.</p><p>Have to work past 5:30 p.m. or so? Bum a ride from a friend because you won&#8217;t be taking the bus.</p><p>It&#8217;s been this way for decades, and, despite high gas prices, only incremental improvements are in the plans now.</p><p>&#8220;If we were willing to raise taxes to start operating more buses, we could fix it overnight,&#8221; says Segale, one of the more vocal proponents of mass transit on the seven-member county board.</p><p>&#8220;But I don&#8217;t think there are four votes on the commission for that.&#8221;</p><p>Say what you will about Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser. His Missouri-side-only regional transit system may not even get on the ballot. (Missouri-side-only because Kansas-side politicians were too shortsighted to pass enabling legislation for a special transit tax.)</p><p>But at least the Funk is trying to find some transit solutions for people who can&#8217;t afford to fill their gas tanks.</p><p>At least the folks in Clay, Platte and Jackson counties already have a somewhat comprehensive bus system that gets people where they need to go seven days a week.</p><p>You can do without a car on the Missouri side and not be a total shut-in. To a lesser extent, it&#8217;s also possible in KCK.</p><p>But not in Johnson County. That wasn&#8217;t such a problem when gas was a buck a gallon, or even three times that.</p><p>But with the real prospect of $5 gas in the not-so-distant future, demand for better transit is growing.</p><p>Johnson Countians ranked transit as the second-most-pressing need for improvement in a September 2007 survey.</p><p>It&#8217;s also reflected at the fare box. Ridership on the JO has soared by double-digit percentages in recent months.</p><p>&#8220;Some routes are standing room only,&#8221; Ferguson said.</p><p>Problem is, he can&#8217;t add buses to some routes without taking them off others. Unlike Kansas City&#8217;s ATA, Johnson County Transit doesn&#8217;t even have its own separate tax levy.</p><p>All of its local funding comes out of the general tax revenues. The bus system competes for dollars with every other county service.</p><p>Which is what I mean by saying that the issue is a matter of political priorities.</p><p>And the only way to force changes in those priorities is to put pressure on the politicians who set them.</p><p>When gas gets to $4 a gallon for regular, don&#8217;t gripe to the guy at the next pump about the lack of a decent public transit system.</p><p>Send an e-mail to your county commissioner. Call your mayor.</p><p>Better yet, pester them both.