NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) — Just as free buses gain new political champions, the city that helped popularize the idea is abandoning it.
Kansas City reinstated bus fares this month after six years, unwinding a closely watched experiment that inspired zero-fare transit campaigns across the US, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s.
Transit officials in the Missouri city say the zero-fare program became difficult to sustain after the expiration of federal Covid pandemic relief funds that had helped offset its costs for several years. While the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority initially estimated it would forgo about $8.8 million annually in fare revenue, the agency says the true cost of operating a zero-fare system grew to roughly $15 million a year, partly due to unanticipated expenses and inflation…