https://www.435mag.com/kansas-city-becomes-first-major-american-city-with-universal-fare-free-public-transit/
Expected to cost the city $8 million, but worth it, I guess.
Only $8 million? That seems … really cheap! I mean, I know Kansas City isn’t the biggest city in the world, but it’s still about a half million people. Can that number really be right?
We’re doing the same thing here starting next month.
A great idea. I hope someone is capturing all the data on this.
The 2019 budget for the transit authority was $106 million in total with an estimated 9.1 million coming from fares. The bus service was already heavily subsidized. The story in the link mentions possible cost saving measures like cutting routes to bring the cost down. 8 million might be possible.
That’s great. The city as a whole will benefit, because those ticket fees are likely still going to be spent, some of it in shops and other local businesses.
In the 80s, Fort Worth TX had free bus rides within the city, and a private (also free) subway bringing people from a somewhat distant parking lot. I believe it went into operation during the late 60s, and was still operating free of charge when the Missus and I moved to FW in 85. I just asked her to be sure, and she said the busses and subway were all free – she rode them daily for a few years. I remember it well because it was patrolled by guards on horseback, and a safe place to leave your car.
Not sure when it changed, but the subway is gone and the tunnels are a scary place for urban explorers, and busses aren’t free anymore.
No cite about the free busses, sorry. I’ll keep looking. Link to article about the subway. Pic of the big public parking lot and subway stop.
Good on them.
Gotta admit, my initial reaction was to wonder whether Kansas City is a “major” US city? 
Upon looking, tho, I see it is #38, 1 slot behind Atlanta, and 2 ahead of Miami. Weird how some cities seem (to me) larger or smaller than their population alone would suggest.
Wow, I had no idea this sort of thing was happening at all.
I’ve occasionally mused to myself that more people might use mass transit if not for the hassle. You can’t just pop a quarter in the machine as you get on the bus like when I was a kid. Now you have to go to one of those machines and buy a card, and then later maybe add funds for the exit fee if you didn’t figure it right, and every city is on a different damn system…
Let’s just do it for free is a nice cutting of the Gordian Knot! Step on a bus or train and go somewhere. I love it, and if it came to my area I’d be happy to pay taxes to support it.
Very cool! I look forward to seeing how this works out long term.
Oh, honey. There’s an app for that!
I run NoScript; when I click on that link I can’t see the picture. Not that uncommon; however, what is unusual is the error message that it return - “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” 
This is confusing. I live in Kansas city (well near it in a Kansas suburb). Now there were at one time 3 major bus services and a few years ago all 3 merged into one.
So I’m not sure if this is just the Kansas City Mo. portion or if it will effect the whole system.
Forgive for treating a funny response seriously, but I think we could do with fewer convenient ways to take our money. Example: EZ-Pass. Is it better than tollbooths, yes. But I’ve always said maybe we shouldn’t be tolling roads in the first place. I think it should be done through taxes.
I’ve backed off a little on that opinion as we’ve seen more congestion because of Uber and other factors. But still, I don’t want more goddam AppStore’s other tech solutions. Can’t we just love the idea of no-fee public transit and run with that?
Cite.
Veterans and high school students already ride for free. How this will be paid for isn’t addressed in the article -
Regards,
Shodan
Seattle, at least when I visited in the early 2000s, had a “free ride zone” within the central downtown area. If you boarded and exited the bus within that zone you didn’t have to pay the fare. If you boarded within that zone but stayed on the bus longer and exited outside the free ride zone you would pay the fare as you exited.
Summit County Colorado and the towns within also have free bus service. We (I work for the County) also have a ‘Smart Bus’ App that you can download to your phone that will tell you just where your bus is at and how long before it will reach your location/stop. They are all tacked on GPS, and mapped for you.
Didn’t Portland, OR also have a free ride zone, at least on the train? Haven’t been in years.
It surprises me under 10% of KC’s bus service is paid for by fares. According to this wiki article, big name public transit services get from 10% to 70% (BART system in San Francisco) of their expenses covered by fares. I wonder if too many people were evading the fares. I know in my hometown of Tacoma lots of people say they “forgot” the fare and get let on anyway.
You haven’t really lived until you’ve done all that in Japanese. Without actually knowing Japanese.