The US city that helped shape Zohran Mamdani’s ambitious proposal to make buses free for New York City commuters is now charging passengers again, after a $50 million fare-free experiment ran out of money.
Kansas City, Missouri, became the first city in the nation to offer free bus rides in 2020 using federal COVID-19 relief dollars. But the program ended this month as funding disappeared and annual operating costs climbed to roughly $15 million — nearly twice the original estimate, Bloomberg reported.
The fare-free system — a key plank of Mamdani’s mayoral campaign — drew criticism from some Missouri riders and transit workers, who complained that service became inconsistent, buses were dirty and vehicles increasingly functioned as makeshift shelters once federal support dried up.
“As we ran out of the money and the support, we were forced to make more service cuts or move to fares to support those services,” Tyler Means, chief mobility and strategy officer at Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, told the outlet.
Transit leaders said the high-profile initiative became financially unsustainable after the pandemic-era relief funding expired.
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The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority had first projected it would forgo about $8.8 million per year in fare revenue. Officials later said the actual cost of maintaining a zero-fare bus network had surged to around $15 million annually, driven in part by inflation and unanticipated expenses.
“Zero-fare means worse service,” Jarrett Walker, a public transportation planning consultant, told Bloomberg.
“Taking out fares creates a much bigger hole that requires much bigger service cuts unless you find money somewhere else.”
Mamdani himself — who has frequently pointed to the failed Midwest city program as a success — couldn’t even find the funds in his massive $124 billion budget to cover the cost of his pet project.
Instead, the fresh-faced socialist urged Albany to continue the pilot for free buses, providing fare-free trips on a few routes around the city.
Still, the mayor has not dropped his pledge to make city buses free, a proposal that could cost roughly $800 million to replace lost fare revenue.
City Hall did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
