Short Take: Loving Kansas City’s airport a little less
As much as Kansas Citians say they love their quirky old drive up-and-dash airport just the way it is, our delight in its charms has faded over the years, slipping just a notch to 67.3 percent in this last year and down 4.2 percent since 2005, according to the latest annual citizen survey.
That erosion in “satisfaction in airport facilities,” is the only meaningful downward trend in categories the Olathe-based ETC Institute started measuring a dozen years ago. That’s even as our satisfaction with parks, customer service and even stormwater management have gone up. (Among categories not surveyed in 2005, though, satisfaction in solid waste services and in water utilities fell faster, down 5.5 percent and 4.2 percent in just the last year.)
The single biggest swing from last year was a nearly 5 percent bump in satisfaction with public transportation since the streetcar started running. Yet even now, only 43.9 percent say they’re satisfied on that front. Overall, satisfaction in Kansas City as a place to live has gone up 10 percent in 12 years.
So maybe when it comes to the airport, as with Obamacare, it’s only when change seems possible that we feel so warmly about what we’ve got?
The Kansas City Star Editorial Board
This story was originally published July 16, 2017 at 3:30 PM with the headline "Short Take: Loving Kansas City’s airport a little less."