The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) avoided planned service cuts last month after Kansas City approved $8.3 million in extra funding, preventing 48 union workers from being laid off. But long-term transit funding remains uncertain as costs for transit agencies increase nationally.
Before the extra funding the KCATA, which provides the RideKC bus service, planned to eliminate routes and reduce the frequency of others in Kansas City by September 6 due to what it described as rising costs and insufficient funding.
Will Howard, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1287, said that this was a big relief for his members, many of whom work as bus operators at the KCATA.
“This means a lot because it’s able to save 48 operators from being laid off,” Howard stated.
Howard, who took over leadership of his union when the KCATA was planning on downsizing operations, mentioned that he spoke with members of the Kansas City Council to make sure that his members kept their jobs.
“We talked to many of our council folks,” Howard noted. “Some of whom we supported the last time I was in office, rekindled some relationships, and got them to understand the importance of what happens if this funding issue happens.”
What Was at Stake
According to the American Public Transportation Association’s Ridership Report, the KCATA had around 2.5 million passenger trips in Q1 of 2026 alone.
Chuck Ferguson, the interim CEO of KCATA, said the transit organization is important for the city’s economic health.
“It’s vital, without public transportation we as an economic community would start to crumble,” Ferguson said. “You would see issues with people not getting to the doctor, kids couldn’t get to school. It’s just a vital day-to-day service for so many of our residents in the area.”
Howard also said that his union had around 550 members, meaning that the transit cuts would’ve affected nearly 9% of his union’s membership if they had gone through, damaging his union’s ability to fight for its members.
“When you don’t have 48 members in, we all pay dues, well, there goes the money that the union’s able to [use to] fight against the company to protect members.”
How Did We Get Here
The latest funding dispute is the fourth time since 2025 that the KCATA has said the budget forced them to consider service cuts, according to reporting from KCUR.
In May, the KCATA announced that it was cutting and reducing bus routes. Although those cuts were initially planned to happen in May, the FIFA World Cup delayed them until September 6.
In June, the KCATA reintroduced bus fares to shore up more revenue, marking a major policy reversal after Kansas City became one of the first major U.S. cities to have free bus transit services in 2020.
Finally, on August 13, Kansas City and the KCATA came to a funding agreement where the city provided $8.3 million, preventing the September 6 cuts and providing the KCATA with enough funding to operate until April 2027.
Ferguson said that the transit organization’s need for more funding was being driven by ever-increasing costs. He said that these expenditures included the cost of diesel, employee healthcare and wages, IT costs, and the effects of rising inflation.
Nationally, costs for public transit organizations have increased. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of diesel has more than doubled from July 2020 to July 2026, rising to $5.08 a gallon as of July. Between 2019 and 2024, several transit agencies saw expenses rise by as much as 40%, according to the Eno Center for Transportation.
Kansas City’s transit challenges reflect a broader national trend. Across the country, transit agencies have faced rising operating expenses and funding shortfalls, leading systems in Philadelphia, Dallas, Chicago, Portland and Rhode Island to make cuts to their public transit services.
What Happens Next
With Kansas City providing most of the funding for the KCATA, more officials in the city are wanting to diversify where and how the transit organization gets its funding so that the city won’t be the sole contributor.
In a Facebook post, Mayor Quinton Lucas said that the city will “look forward to working with KCATA partners in Kansas and all of the surrounds on how further investment can support stable funding forever beyond just KCMO taxpayers. Using street maintenance and repair funds, as we did yesterday, is unsustainable in the long term.”
Howard also noted that he believed public transit needs a wider scope of funding beyond Kansas City.
“What has to happen here in the future is regional funding,” Howard said. “Without the regional funding we’re putting a lot of strain on Kansas City, who’s already giving us more than they really can afford to ensure that we continue bus service for the community, but without surrounding regional support we’re going to always be short.”
One of the proposals for wider funding was recently shot down.
On August 10, the Jackson County Legislature voted down a proposal to put a ½ cent sales tax funding public transit on the November ballot. With the filing deadline for any sales tax ballot initiatives being August 25 at 5:00 pm, the funding initiative won’t be on the November ballot.
However, legislation funding public transit may be reintroduced. Jackson County’s Democratic nominee for county executive Stacy Lake states on her website that, if elected, she will create “the first countywide rapid bus transit line that will connect the majority of the cities together.”
Historically, Lake’s proposal echoes 2010s efforts by then-Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders to develop a regional transit system. Whether or not county voters will pass any future sales tax for public transit remains uncertain, especially with recent sales tax funding proposals being shot down by voters, such as the 2024 sales tax proposal meant to fund projects for the Chiefs and Royals.
But polling from the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance (KCRTA) suggests public transit is popular with voters, with the poll stating that 61% of Jackson County residents support increased funding for public transit from the county.
Looking forward, the current funding contract between Kansas City and the KCATA ends in April 2027, but Ferguson stated that negotiations for the next contract will start months before that.
“Well, this takes us through April so we’ll be operating this level of service through April of 2027. Months before that we begin working on the next city contract cycle.”
Patrick Sanders — an Independence native — is a student journalist from the University of Missouri-Columbia writing for the Labor Beacon. Before joining the Labor Beacon, he wrote for KBIA News, a Mid-Missouri NPR-affiliated news organization. Sanders's grandfather Bruce was a long-time member of the postal workers union, and his older cousin is currently in IBEW Local 124. In his free time, Sanders enjoys spending time with friends and family, reading, and weightlifting. He hopes to bring his knowledge of policy to benefit workers in the greater Kansas City area and give working people a fighting chance.
