Jackson County legislators want feedback from residents on a proposed tax vote aimed at finally providing steady funding for public transportation around Kansas City, with the aim of solving a “death spiral” of shrinking transit service.
In the past few years, many suburbs have pulled their funding from the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, killing any bus routes that aren’t mostly inside, and funded by, Kansas City, Missouri.
Independence, Raytown and Lee’s Summit are the only Jackson County suburbs that still have fixed-route bus services — and each one only has a single route taking riders into Kansas City’s urban core. Besides bus service, the Kansas City region has few other public transportation options to speak of.
The Jackson County legislature is considering placing a half-percent sales tax on the November ballot aimed at fixing many of the area’s public transportation woes. The tax could bring in up to $40 million annually, and could be the first funding increase to target what experts call a “death spiral” affecting public transit in the area.
The legislature has been considering the tax since May. In the meantime, two legislators are hosting listening sessions to find out what residents would want to use the funding on.
“I want to start having discussions early on so that we can start really ginning up the support for investment into public transit,” said Manny Abarca, chair of the Jackson County legislature. “We can engage a multitude of different facets to get from point A to point B, and really leverage a system that is not designed yet to get us using public transit.”
"We want to hear the crazy, wacky ideas"
As the tax ballot question works its way through the county legislature, Abarca and legislator Venessa Huskey are hosting three listening sessions in eastern Jackson County:
- July 7 at 6 p.m., 3609 SW State Route 7, Blue Springs
- July 14 at 6 p.m., 101 SW 12th Street, Oak Grove
- July 28 at 6 p.m., 6131 Raytown Road, Raytown
Abarca encouraged residents from any part of Jackson County to attend the sessions, which could shape how the sales tax money is managed and spent.
The KCATA is the most likely destination for the sales tax revenue. But Abarca said funds could be spent on other types of transit, such as streetcar service, bike lanes and commuter rail.
“We're openly and honestly wanting to hear from folks about the desires here,” Abarca said. “Buses are a solution, but they're not the only solution. I think that's the goal of hearing all the different ideas and suggestions. We want to hear the crazy, wacky ideas and concepts of where these different modes of transit travel through.”
How we got here
The Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for the expansion of public transit, released a poll last year that found voters in Jackson, Clay, Platte and Johnson counties would support a regional sales tax to fund bus service. In Jackson County, 61% of voters said they would support such a tax.
One big sales tax that stretches over multiple counties in Kansas and Missouri is unlikely to happen, so the transit alliance is urging each county to establish its own. Jackson County would be the first.
Tristin Amezcua-Hogan is the chair of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, which has previously helped secure the funding needed to expand the Kansas City Streetcar. He said this tax proposal has been years in the making.
“Jackson County's voters are ready and there are legal pathways forward for us to establish this sort of funding,” Amezcua-Hogan said. “We're very supportive of any attempts to pull the public along into this. We want people to know how government's working and the sort of outcomes we're working towards to get to a place that better serves them.”
The legislature must pass its ordinance by the end of August to put the measure on the November ballot. If the sales tax passes, Amezcua-Hogan says it could signal to other counties in the area that their voters would support dedicated transit funding, too.
“You cannot just piecemeal together a regional transit network through a hodgepodge of municipalities who are opting in or out at various rates and inconsistently,” Amezcua-Hogan said. “This needs to be the first domino in a broader conversation about establishing actual funding mechanisms in our region.”
Robert Puentes, a national transportation expert with the Brookings Institute, said these types of taxes almost always pass. That’s true even in areas that don’t already have easily accessible transit systems, like Kansas City.
“We see almost every single election day that, across the country, people are willing to pay for the public transit that their regions need,” Puentes told KCUR in 2025.
How the KCATA is funded
Public transportation in the Kansas City region has been underfunded and struggling to keep up service for years now. The KCATA is currently running the fewest bus routes it’s ever had in its history.
A lack of stable funding — and feuds between elected officials and the transit agency — has resulted in annual budget fights and regular service cuts.
A 2024 report from the Mid-America Regional Council found that the Kansas City area puts in way less funding for public transit than other peer metros. The KCATA serves seven counties in Missouri and Kansas, and receives funding from federal, state and local governments in its seven-county region.
But the city of Kansas City, Missouri, is the only local government that funds the agency with a dedicated source of tax revenue. The surrounding local governments mostly contribute to the KCATA using money from their general funds, which makes it more likely to get cut if they have to cover other costs. In the absence of other funding, Kansas City, Missouri, has also had to cover most of the KCATA’s overhead costs.
Local groups like the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, MARC and Sunrise Movement Kansas City have each been working to get regional funding in place to stop the death spiral, where insufficient funding leads to service cuts that reduce ridership. The progression of the death spiral would mean continued revenue loss that turns into even more service cuts.
MARC has called for more regional funding options in its Connected KC 2050 plan. It’s been working with local governments and the KCATA to discuss solutions, like at a summit hosted by the KCATA last fall. Sunrise Movement disrupted a Jackson County legislative session in January 2025 to demand lawmakers “do your job and fund our buses.”
