Kansas City’s recent experiments in progressive policymaking — from fare-free transit to subsidized grocery stores — offer a cautionary tale for cities nationwide.
When well-intentioned policies are launched without data, oversight or a clear theory of change, the result isn’t progress but dysfunction. Kansas City’s experience also shows how symbolism without substance can backfire, especially when federal aid masks poor local decision-making.
Take fare-free buses. In 2020, Kansas City became the first major U.S. city to eliminate bus fares — without analysis or transparency. The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority based its decision on a flawed and unpublished study that overstated benefits and leaned on philosophical musings more than data. Since then, ridership has declined. Assaults on operators have also surged, driving up security costs.
Federal COVID relief funds masked the true cost, but they expire this year, leaving a $10 million budget hole. In April, the city council authorized a short-term fix and reinstated a $2 base fare. They also mandated financial audits to improve accountability. The transportation authority has confirmed that fares will be returning.
None of this should have been surprising. A 2002 study from the Center for Urban Transportation Research warned that fare-free transit in large cities triggered more crime, drove up costs and discouraged ridership.
A recent proposal in New York by transportation analyst Charles Komanoff imagines fare-free buses boosting equity and cutting car use, at a projected cost of $630 million annually. But that ignores Kansas City’s experience, in which the theoretical service improvements never materialized. The policy applied universally, benefiting even higher-income riders who didn’t require subsidies, while ignoring what low-income riders actually value: reliability and safety.
Fare elimination also removed a key source of accountability. When riders pay, they expect results. New Yorkers should take note.
Kansas City’s subsidized grocery experiment followed a similar trajectory. In 2018, the city spent $17 million to renovate a shopping center and open a Sun Fresh on the East Side, hoping to improve food access in a struggling community.
By 2024, the city had poured in another $750,000 just to pay debts and restock shelves. Aisles remain empty, foot traffic has collapsed from 14,000 to 4,000 a week, and crime is rampant. A 2023 security report described disorder ranging from shoplifting to drug use.
Before the city acted, private investors had passed on renovating this store for a decade — hardly a vote of confidence. Yet the city proceeded anyway. Even the editorial board of The Kansas City Star called it “a financial gamble for taxpayers,” warning that isolated projects can’t transform communities. The “food desert” framing has also proven underwhelming, as there were other grocery stores already serving the area. As it turned out, food access was less about supply than demand.
Faced with the chance to address deeper issues like nutrition or safety, the city chose instead to subsidize one store. Today, it has little to show for it. Fresh produce doesn’t help much when public safety is in freefall.
There is one other area where Kansas City should serve as a warning to others. In 2021, Mayor Quinton Lucas and the city council attempted to cut the police budget and created a new community fund. Homicides rose every year through 2023, hitting a record 185. Although the numbers drew back in 2024, this year is on pace to be the second-deadliest. By the time officials reversed course, increasing funding and offering raises to attract officers, much damage had already been done.
Kansas City’s recent forays into progressive policymaking — whether fare-free buses, subsidized grocery stores or shifting police budgets — reveal a troubling disconnect between intent and outcome. These policies often begin with great fanfare but end in diminished services, wasted funds and greater public frustration. The reversals and failures suggest a poor grasp of sound public policy, with strategies that shift even as outcomes worsen.
Other cities should take note: policies rolled out with high-minded rhetoric have too often delivered broken services, squandered funds, and fueled frustration. If mayors and city councils want to build trust and improve services, they must match ambition with accountability.
As hometown hero Calvin Trillin once joked, the New York strip is just a rebranded Kansas City strip. If other cities are to borrow something from my beloved cowtown, let it be the beef and the barbecue, not the policy misfires.
Patrick Tuohey is co-founder of Better Cities Project and a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute.
