Kansas City could give KCATA another $6.8 million after proposed bus route cuts
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The city council's considering giving another $6.8 million to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA).
The move comes as the KCATA proposes bus route cuts. They're also considering eliminating most weekend services for the remaining routes.
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During Tuesday's Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee meeting, city council members complained that the KCATA hasn't been transparent with them on what routes they're planning to cut or what their deficit was.
Tuesday, City Councilmember Crispin Rea submitted an amendment that would redirect money that was supposed to go to LED light upgrades to go back to the KCATA. Rea's proposing using reserve money to go to the authority too. He says both sources are from the public mass transit tax.
'That we then also use that money to go to make sure we are not losing bus routes,' Rea said in an interview with FOX4 Tuesday.
'That is funding that is generally intended to be used in emergency situations. When we're on the brink of having to cut bus routes, I can't think of a more appropriate use in that situation.'
The KCATA wouldn't comment on Rea's new proposal. Thursday, riders found out they're looking to cut 13 of the city's 29 bus routes, impacting more than 6,800 daily riders.
That evening, authority leaders said they were suffering from rising costs and the loss of COVID-19 relief dollars.
Tuesday, Councilman Kevin O'Neill said he thought that the KCATA had a $22 million deficit. As the conversation continued, Mayor Quinton Lucas spoke about five minutes later.
'We did ask all those questions two weeks ago when we had the ATA Director in front of us,' Mayor Lucas said to the other committee members.
'We were not given publicly the list of routes, and then, a week later, we see them with the rest of the public about kind of everywhere, that everything purportedly will be cut.'
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Rea said he doesn't know what the KCATA's budget gap is. He says he believes it's closer to $12 million than the KCATA's publicly stated report that it's closer to $30 million. The KCATA wouldn't comment on that part of Tuesday's story either.
Mayor Lucas and the rest of the city council will vote on the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year budget Thursday at 2 p.m.
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