Public Buses, Run by the City
I called in Kim Jin-soo, head of the Public Transportation Division, first thing in the morning. He was a young civil servant I'd had my eye on for some time. Tasked with the city's most complaint-heavy portfolio — buses — he had a reputation for trying his hardest no matter what came across his desk.
The truth was, even after last night's town hall ended, my head had been spinning with nothing but transportation problems. Yeojin City's transit system was antiquated, and the citizens' frustrations had been quietly piling up for years.
This department used to be called simply the "Traffic Division," but the scope of its responsibilities was absurdly broad.
Not only did it handle public transit like city buses and taxis, it was also saddled with illegal parking enforcement, parking lot management, the traffic information center, even vehicle registration. The word "traffic" alone had been used as a catch-all for everything.
So when I became mayor, my very first reorganization split it in two.
The Public Transportation Division and the Walkable City Division.
The Public Transportation Division would handle the transit services citizens actually used — buses, taxis, shared bicycles, and the like. The Walkable City Division, formerly the Road Division, would manage infrastructure: the road network, sidewalks, bike lanes, and on-street parking management.
Quite a few people were puzzled at first.
"You could have just called it the Transit Division. Why insist on 'Public Transportation Division'?"
It may have looked like a trivial distinction. But I believe in the power of language.
The term "mass transit" risked being perceived as transportation used by a particular class of people. The word "mass" — "the public" — stands in contrast to leadership, so it could easily imply a service meant only for ordinary citizens.
In fact, among the civil servants working in transportation administration, the widespread perception was that it was a welfare service for the economically disadvantaged.
But "public transportation" is different. "Public" means a system that must be open to everyone — rich or poor, disabled or able-bodied, adult or teenager. Anyone and everyone should be able to use it with ease.
I wanted to embed that philosophy into the administration itself.
Redefining terms that had been used by administrative convention for decades. It might seem like a small change, but this was precisely the first step toward building a new Yeojin City.
There was exactly one reason I'd summoned the Public Transportation Division chief first thing in the morning: a complete overhaul of Yeojin City's bus system.
My campaign platform had stated only that I would "reform the bus system to fit Yeojin City."
I had deliberately left out the detailed plans.
No sense laying out a concrete blueprint in advance just to stir up unnecessary controversy. Now was the moment to start giving real, hands-on direction.
The moment Chief Kim stepped through the door, I fired off the question.
"How many buses does Yeojin City currently operate in total?"
He spread out the materials he'd brought and answered.
"There are about a hundred registered routes. But only fifty-three buses are actually in operation."
"How much is the subsidy?"
"Roughly seven billion won this year."
"And the operator?"
"A single transport company called Woosoo Bus runs everything."
I nodded slowly. One private company held a complete monopoly in Yeojin City — and despite pocketing a seven-billion-won subsidy, it kept crying deficit and demanding more support.
"How much does it cost to operate a single bus?"
"About 130 million won per year."
I did the math. Fifty-three buses came to roughly 6.9 billion won in total operating costs. In other words, the city was effectively covering nearly the entire cost of running the bus system.
The company wasn't losing money at all. If anything, it was being handed a free ride.
And that wasn't all. The company didn't just demand bigger subsidies — it mobilized the bus drivers' union to stage strikes, squeezing the city into padding the budget.
Each time, the city gritted its teeth and gave in, and the company came to treat the money as its due.
"And the city budget doesn't just cover operating costs, does it?"
The chief looked slightly taken aback.
"Correct. Building the arrival-departure tracking system, maintaining bus shelters, managing routes — none of those expenses are trivial. On top of the buses' operating costs themselves, we spend an additional two billion won or more every year."
"So Yeojin City is currently sinking nine billion won a year into bus operations."
"...Yes, sir."
I let out a sigh.
If this kept up, the city's budget would hemorrhage without end. How much longer were we going to be dragged around by a bus company?
The city council was already raising the issue — how long would we have to keep subsidizing this? A few councilors had gone so far as to argue that if this was how it would be, the buses should simply be abolished and replaced with some other mode of transportation.
But buses aren't just another mode of transport. For the elderly, for students, for the transit-dependent, they are a lifeline.
Yet we couldn't just keep pouring money into the fire either.
"Leave things as they are, and one day Yeojin's buses will be abolished outright."
Chief Kim sighed and nodded.
"Yes, the current structure isn't sustainable. But there's no alternative..."
I placed my hands on the desk and spoke slowly.
"No alternative? That isn't true."
The chief looked puzzled.
"Mayor, what sort of plan do you have in mind?"
I turned my laptop toward him — the screen showing the current map of Yeojin's bus routes.
"Chief, let's take a fresh look at the state of our bus network."
He seemed to have anticipated this part, because he launched straight into the explanation.
"Yeojin City is a basin, hemmed in by mountains to the north and south. That's why our city bus routes are structured around east-west connections. The problem is the outskirts."
I nodded. The system had collapsed because buses that would have been perfectly adequate running within the urban core alone had been stretched, little by little, to reach ever-expanding fringe areas.
"The development of the rural areas was a particular problem."
He continued.
"The city's population itself hasn't really grown. But apartment complexes have been springing up in the rural outskirts one after another, creating all these new residential districts. And naturally, the people who moved there started demanding bus routes."
I sighed.
"Hold on — why were apartments approved out there in the first place? Shouldn't a large residential development come with transportation plans before anything else?"
"You're right. That's how it should have worked. But the development permits were issued under the previous mayor, and the problems only surfaced after people had actually moved in."
I flipped through the documents. Because the residential complexes kept multiplying, vehicles had to be pulled off existing routes to create new ones.
Buses that had run every ten minutes stretched to twenty, and in the outlying areas the service degraded to one bus every three or four hours. It was a wretched excuse for a transit system.
And through it all, the city had sat on its hands.
"So in trying to keep the old routes running while extending service outward, the whole operation fell apart."
"That's right. But the bigger problem is that the city never properly collected the infrastructure levy from the start."
"The infrastructure levy?"
Chief Kim nodded.
"Yes. When a large residential complex is built, the city can collect a development charge from the developer to fund infrastructure. That money should have gone toward building the transit network and planning bus routes in advance. Instead, past administrations spent every won of it on road expansion."
I shut the folder with a firm slap.
"So this mess isn't simply a bus operations problem."
"No, sir. Because transportation planning was never considered when the development permits were granted, we've been reduced to reactive patchwork ever since."
I looked him square in the eye.
"So are we just going to leave it like this?"
The chief said nothing.
Watching him fail to come up with an answer, I felt a flicker of frustration. I already knew what I wanted to do — but I couldn't be the one to pull that card out.
And if I told him how I happened to know, I'd just have to answer "sheer improvisation" again, which only frustrated me more.
I need to draw the answer out of him again. How? Start by laying out the direction of change, then pull the solution out of him.
"Starting now, we're going to redesign Yeojin's bus system from scratch."
His face froze for an instant.
"Mayor, bus route restructuring is an extremely sensitive matter... The city council will not take kindly to it."
"So we should just keep going as we are? People in neighborhoods where the bus comes once every three or four hours should just keep suffering in silence?"
The chief went quiet.
I turned to Kim Jin-soo across the desk and, deliberately relaxed, tossed him a line.
"Chief, be honest with me. You've given a lot of thought to bus policy over the years, haven't you?"
Chief Kim fidgeted with his fingertips, flustered, then answered carefully.
"Well... I've had plenty of thoughts. But none of them are the kind of thing that gets done just by saying them out loud."
"If you keep your mouth shut, nothing changes. Even the ideas you're sure will never fly — say them anyway. That's the only way anything gets changed."
Under my quiet prodding, Chief Kim pressed his lips together for a moment. Then he let out a small sigh and finally opened his mouth.
"First... route restructuring is the most urgent. The current routes bear no relation to actual demand. And going forward, whenever the city does urban development or redevelopment projects, we need to build in a way that moves in coordination with the bus routes."
I nodded, watching him. He didn't stop.
"And... right now a single private company operates everything. That structure has to change. The public sector should be able to run part of the service directly."
"Good direction. A realistic proposal."
At my words, Chief Kim flinched slightly. His face said he had more he wanted to say. So I added quietly:
"But if it's such a good direction... why has it never happened?"
Chief Kim turned his head and looked out the window for a moment. Then, at last, he spoke in a low voice.
"That's... the company that runs the buses in Yeojin is a local power broker. And... he's on close terms with most of the mayors, too."
The words slipped out of him in a near whisper, as if he were confessing something he should never have said.
"So that's why nobody ever touched it."
He nodded slowly.
Hearing that, I laid out my direction.
"First: a complete restructuring of the existing route network. Routes that tangle up and duplicate each other get consolidated, and headways are tightened on the critical corridors."
"Second: any new route must be tied to a mandatory 'transportation support plan' linked to large residential districts. From now on, when the city grants development permits, securing bus routes in advance will be written into the regulations."
Anyone could say that much. But the crux was the third point.
"Third: we dismantle the single-private-operator structure. We'll examine a plan for the city to take direct control of bus operations, and consider a public-private partnership model if necessary."
The chief, who had been listening in silence, jolted upright.
"I— I'm afraid I don't follow, sir."
The entrenched ways of the old administration could not be left standing. Yeojin had, until now, run its transportation administration purely for the benefit of one company. But I was different.
From this day forward, Yeojin City's bus system would be transformed root and branch.
I closed my notebook and looked at the chief.
"Chief, let me ask you honestly. Of all the mayors and senior officials this city has had — how many have actually ridden the buses?"
The chief hesitated, then gave an awkward smile.
"...Honestly? I'd have to say almost none."
"Exactly. They all drive their own cars, so they have no idea what the buses are actually like. They just look at the numbers in the reports and make their judgments."
I tapped the desk with my finger.
"And what happens if we try to change things one at a time? Public hearings, expert consultations, council debates, resident briefings... two or three years vanish just like that. And the whole time, the citizens keep suffering."
"So you're saying, Mayor, that..."
"We change everything at once."
The chief's eyes went wide.
"All at once?"
"Yes. Change things piecemeal and you get noise from every direction, and in the end nothing changes at all. So this time, we tackle every problem simultaneously."
I drew a breath and threw down the conclusion.
"Chief, start reviewing the acquisition of the bus company. Immediately, and in strict secrecy. Everything else — the route restructuring, the outlying district development — you can let that slip out freely. Bus route changes are something everyone has an opinion on, so there'll be plenty of talk, but no one will actually oppose it."
The chief looked as though he'd been launched out of his chair.
"Mayor, you want to buy the bus company?!"
"That's right. Woosoo Bus will be operated directly by the city."
The chief couldn't find his voice. He stared at me as if I were spouting absolute nonsense.
"I— isn't that far too radical a decision? A city buying out a private bus company and converting it to public operation—"
"Radical? Chief, do you believe Yeojin's buses are operating normally right now?"
"...No."
"Then the system collapses entirely. The council is already pushing back over the subsidy question, and public frustration keeps mounting. And this Woosoo Bus — is the money actually being spent on running the buses?"
The chief had no answer. I pressed on without pause.