1% of commuters is not the same thing 1% of trips. For a less dense city like KC you can't really expect many commuters to use buses unless the city is carpet

1% of commuters is not the same thing 1% of trips. For a less dense city like KC you can't really expect many commuters to use buses unless the city is carpet bombed with bus lines since the low density makes car ownership not suck (there's probably free parking at your job) and buses suck more (the bus is less likely to go where you need it). Bus lines do however generally do a good job going to places like schools, grocery stores, senior centers, etc, etc, and all sorts of places demographics other than "commuters" want to go.