Low ridership, higher costs lead metro cities to end RideKC services

BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. (KCTV) - In October, Blue Springs will join three other Kansas City metro cities that are no longer offering fixed routes by RideKC.

Gladstone, Grandview and Raytown ended fixed routes with RideKC in the last year.

Raytown still offers an on-demand service.

One rider has taken the 570 Blue Springs Express for 15 years, four times a week. Jeanne Knapp received a service change flyer Tuesday while riding the bus.

“I was disappointed but not really surprised,” said Blue Springs resident, Jeanne Knapp. She added, “I knew eventually this was coming.”

Knapp uses a power chair due to having Spina Bifida, a condition that affects the spine and has worsened her ability to walk as she’s gotten older.

“It is really necessary, especially for people with disabilities,” said Knapp.

READ MORE: Blue Springs becomes fourth city to drop RideKC: Services to end in October

She said using RideKC allows her primary transportation a break and saves gas, time, and wear and tear on her family’s vehicles.

Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) said multiple factors are creating these decisions for cities in the metro.

“It depends on the community’s priority and their funding situation,” said KCATA Deputy CEO, Richard Jarrold.

One of those factors is federal money from COVID relief is used up.

“It is no longer there to help support the contracts so making up for that loss of money has to go back to the local community to cover that so that is part of the increase,” said Jarrold.

Since KCATA went to zero fares, the cost has risen for some.

“In the past, some of the fare revenue helped offset the cost of the service but again for Blue Springs it was not a large amount of fare revenue,” said Jarrold.

Blue Springs has also seen lower ridership.

“It’s gone down a lot and I think that is the change of some of the employment situations,” said Jarrold.

He added that pre-pandemic they saw about 120-180 riders per day and now see less than 20 a day.

In a statement to KCTV5 on Wednesday the City of Blue Springs shared more on its decision to remove service.

Knapp said she is going to have to find another route to hop on such as the Blue Ridge or Independence locations.

“I’m gonna have to find a different location to get on a bus because the bus, like I said, that is part of my interaction with other people and it saves time and money for gas and wear and tear on the vehicles,” said Knapp.

She worries it will all eventually go away.

“Other people with disabilities are gonna have issues in other cities, not just Blue Springs not just Gladstone, you know everybody is going to have issues and I’m afraid it is going to take that before they realize it -- this was necessary,” said Knapp. “I think it would benefit everybody if they just gave it a chance.”

Knapp hopes Blue Springs will rethink this decision.

According to the City of Blue Springs website, OATs Transporation is only available within city limits.

Jarrold said they would like to revisit this route with Blue Springs in the future.

“We think the services we operate are really vital to a lot of people including those in Blue Springs that are coming downtown for work and employment and we hate to see any of these services really go away,” said Jarrold.

Jarrold said they do not anticipate more cities to remove services.

He shared that zero fare is still in place and there has been no decision made to move away from it or keep it.

RideKC service ends in October for Blue Springs.