Kansas City Council Business Session: IRIS Funding and KCATA Service Reductions (April 24, 2025)
Kansas City Council Business Session - April 24, 2025
The April 24, 2025 business session of the Kansas City Council focused on updates regarding the IRIS microtransit service and the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) operations. Key discussions included the potential suspension of IRIS, proposed service reductions due to funding constraints, and concerns over the impact on riders and drivers. Council members debated continued funding and introduced a motion to extend IRIS for six months. The meeting concluded with a vote to enter closed session to discuss legal matters.
Consent Calendar
- A motion regarding a "PUPAL amendment" was moved, seconded, and passed unanimously by voice vote.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Terry O'Toole, president of Kansas City Z Trip WHC (the operator of IRIS), presented cost reduction strategies including reducing the vehicle fleet from 30 to 20 (35% cost savings) and limiting trip lengths. He stated that the majority of independent contractor drivers are satisfied with their arrangement and that drivers can choose to become W-2 employees. He noted IRIS currently provides around 441,000 trips annually with about 1,048 daily trips, 350 of which are work-related.
- Frank White III, CEO of KCATA, presented the impact of the six-month funding ordinance (46.7 million dollars) and proposed service changes: reduced span of service (5am–11pm weekday instead of 3:30am–1am), reduced headways (major routes at 20 minutes peak, hourly on others), and no route eliminations. He recommended a Comprehensive Service Analysis (CSA) costing approximately $700,300 (mostly federal grants) to redesign service with community input, which would take about a year.
Discussion Items
- IRIS Service Funding: Councilman Rogers announced his intent to introduce an ordinance to fund IRIS for an additional six months at a cost of $3 million. He also requested interim funding to keep IRIS running past the April 30 suspension date. Councilwoman French expressed support. Jason Walter, Transportation Director, stated IRIS costs about $500,000 per month ($6 million annually) and that staff could explore short-term extensions but could not commit. Councilwoman Robinson requested detailed revenue and cost data and argued that cutting IRIS harms vulnerable populations and contradicts the city's original intent. Councilman Curls raised concerns about independent contractor drivers being charged fees and insisted that driver issues must be addressed before continued support.
- KCATA Service Changes: Frank White III explained that without additional funding, KCATA will implement service reductions: weekday span from 5am to 11pm, major routes (24, 31, Main Max, Troost Max, Prospect Max) at 20-minute headways 6am–6pm and 30-minute outside that window, all other routes at hourly headways. Weekend service will see similar changes. The cost to maintain current headways is an additional $2.75 million over six months. Councilman Duncan questioned the discrepancy between the approved $46.7 million and the presented $51.7 million for current service; White clarified the latter is the cost of current service before cuts. Councilman Curls asked about alternative scenarios; White noted 12 scenarios were considered and the presented one avoided route eliminations per the council's request. Councilwoman Robinson expressed that hourly headways are unacceptable, particularly for low-income riders. Councilman Robinson also noted that the city is using PMT tax funds for other priorities instead of transit and that over $15 million from the welfare tax has been diverted to the general fund.
- Regionalization & Future Planning: White reported that the KCATA board approved starting a regional summit within 90 days and is working on a regional fare system. A CSA would be completed by early 2026.
Key Outcomes
- Councilman Rogers will introduce an ordinance to extend IRIS funding for six months; no vote was taken on the proposal.
- No immediate decision was made on interim IRIS funding; staff will continue to explore options.
- KCATA's proposed service reductions are set to take effect without additional funding; council members expressed strong dissatisfaction but took no formal vote to block them.
- A motion to enter closed session under Missouri Revised Statutes Section 610.021(1) to discuss legal matters was approved via roll call: 10 ayes, 1 no (Councilman Robinson opposed), 0 abstentions.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon. We will call the April 24th business session meeting to order. Is there a motion for PUPAL amendment? So moved. Second. It's been moved and properly seconded. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay, that motion carries. Uh the first item on the or the next item is the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority operations report. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Uh City Council, my name is Jason Walter and I'm the transportation director in public works. With me today is Associate Director of Transportation Angie Laurie. We are here to provide a transportation update on the IRIS service as directed by the ordinance 250247. So that ordinance, as you may recall, authorizes agreement with KCATA to provide transit services through the month of October. And it also asked for a report back and a review of the IRA service data. You can see on your screen that our previous recommendation of not of suspending that service was carried through that ordinance of funding for transit. But as far as just the service itself, if there was any interest to increase funding or re-distribute priorities, we we estimate the cost of the IRIS service to be about $500,000 a month, which is about six million dollars annually. Um for obviously doing the math. If we were to stay with the six-month service model, that would be about three million dollars. And just for reference, we were looking at an annual uh passenger of 441 uh with daily trips booked at 1,048. So that is a real high level update of the IRIS service, but we are here uh and others in the audience here to answer any questions you all may have. All right, thank you for that um update. Questions, colleagues? Go ahead, Councilman. Um when you talk about the cost for running IRIS, you you're talking about 300,000. I mean 500,000 uh uh quar uh a month. That is correct. 500,000 a month, so for six months we're looking at three million dollars. That's right. Has there ever has there been any studies done on as to whether this could ever be a um cost neutral uh service, or do we do we have a projected number that eventually it could reach lesser numbers based on more ridership cost, etc. uh revenue for from coming in from that. You know, I as I sit here, I don't have that information in in that study, but we do have Terry O'Toole in the audience from Iris, who may be a better answer to that question Terry O'Toole 1300 Lydia Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri. I'm the president of Kansas City Z Trip WHC, and I appreciate time to speak to the council today. Uh Councilman O'Neill, I appreciate the question. We have in the PowerPoint that we set to every uh council person today, you will see there are some opportunities for cost reduction and flattening of what it is. We have a plan in there that could take the number of vehicles from 30 to 20. That would reduce the cost by about 35 percent just out of the gate. We also have in the details of it, which I don't expect you all to sort of necessarily dig through, but we also have uh plans, opportunities to make the system more efficient by limiting the length of the trip. If uh in the where we look at it from now, and as we see microtransit, you know, coast to coast, border to border, other cities. We currently have a program that there's not a limit on the miles of the trip, so that makes some trips prohibitively expensive. And if we sort of attack this and said Kansas City should have microtransit, it is part of the uh menu of transportation for public transportation in 2025 with World Cup coming. Kans City North South has some very very good fixed route routes that if we take somebody from say 85th and homes instead of taking them all the way downtown, we get them to Waldo, it just makes it so I've taken a long time to answer your question. Yes, there's a lot of ways we could make it more efficient. Go ahead, Councilman Rogers. So I I don't know if this is much of a question as a statement as far as some things we've been talking about. So one thing that I'm deeply concerned about is iris in the short term, and my concern not only for the riders but also for the drivers who make a living off of it.
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