Passengers will lose nearly half of Kansas City’s bus routes if the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s budget cuts go into effect — and they would also lose the rideshare service IRIS, which fills holes in the bus system.

To make up a funding gap of about $32 million , the agency has proposed cutting almost half of its weekday bus routes, running the remaining ones less frequently, and keeping only seven weekend routes. Its contract proposal also calls for ending Kansas City’s on-demand rideshare service IRIS, which costs the KCATA about $7.6 million annually.

Kansas City launched IRIS in the spring of 2023 to fill transportation gaps in the Northland . It expanded to the rest of the city and some suburbs that summer. It charges riders a flat rate, which is less than private services like Uber or Lyft, based on which zone they’re going to.

KCATA is the manager of the IRIS contract, which is run by zTrip, a local taxi service. But Kansas City controls its existence. If the city chooses to end the IRIS contract, more than 100 of its drivers will lose their jobs.

D’Angelo Hicks is a driver for IRIS. He said eliminating IRIS will not only be hard on the drivers, but it also will leave more residents stranded than ever after route cuts in recent years .

“If they're going to cut bus routes and then cut IRIS, then how are people going to have transportation to get anywhere?” Hicks said. “It's already difficult because they already have cut bus routes, and IRIS is picking that up.”

Ashley Ball said IRIS has been a “lifeline” for her and her family. When she was working overnight shifts at a paper factory, the bus schedule didn’t fit her shift. She relied on IRIS to keep her job.

She said if the service goes away, she’s not sure how she’ll get around.

“Right now, it’s hard enough to get where you're trying to go,” Ball said. “I feel like it would hurt all of us, and leave people in situations of trying to figure out how are they going to be able to move around when all of the options that were placed there to help out are gone.”

Buses are more cost-effective for KCATA than a rideshare service like IRIS. It costs the agency about $6 per passenger for single bus trips.

IRIS costs nearly $24 per trip to operate, according to Cindy Baker, vice president of communications for KCATA.

IRIS passengers pay between $3 and $10 to ride, depending on the length of the journey . KCATA buses are free to ride, though the agency is considering bringing back fares in some manner.

Tyler Means, chief strategy officer for KCATA, said the agency is working with the city during its contract negotiations to determine if Kansas City wants to keep the rideshare service running.

“It is an additional cost without additional funding, so it has to be balanced,” Means said. “If that service is there, then it means less fixed-route service. So the question that has to be answered is, do we want to have more fixed-route, or do we want to have more microtransit?”

Zachary White, a driver for IRIS, said a majority of his passengers are using the service to go to work. Others schedule rides for entertainment, such as family movie trips, or to get to medical appointments.

White gives rides to more than 30 people each day. He said most of his passengers use IRIS because they don’t have easy access to a bus line. If IRIS gets cut as well, he said Kansas City would come to a standstill.

“A lot of stuff is going to close down because they're not going to have enough employees to operate,” White said. “So we're going to lose a lot of restaurants, we might lose a lot of the medical staff.”

Jaz Hays lives north of the river in Kansas City. He and his wife share a car, so he uses IRIS to run errands because it's cheaper than other rideshare services, he said.

He lives near the #21 bus line, which is on the chopping block under KCATA’s cost-saving plan. If both that and IRIS are eliminated, Hays said he would be in a transit desert.

“It means that I'm probably going to be using Uber more, which is more expensive,” Hays said. “I've been in positions where that would have been a lot more consequential. I've been broke; I've been in a position where I've relied on public transportation, especially in Northland.”

Still, Hays said he doesn’t use IRIS as much as he would like to because he finds the service unreliable and rides often take longer than expected.

Ball said IRIS has had hiccups as it’s grown, but that there have also been times when she’s had to wait multiple hours for the bus. She said that doesn’t mean either of those services should be cut.

“There's always things and kinks that need to be worked out,” Ball said. “No system is without glitches. It's more so about how do you fix it or how can we make it better for everybody. These are both lifelines that are needed here, regardless if it has not been perfect.”

Between January 2024 and January 2025, IRIS completed an average of about 24,600 trips per month. That’s compared to an average of more than 1 million bus trips per month for the KCATA.

Last fall, IRIS drivers rallied outside zTrip headquarters to demand the right to unionize for higher pay, benefits and safety on the job.

ZTrip controls the IRIS platform and operations, sets workers' hours and pay, and garnishes workers’ paychecks to cover lease fees, car washes, a tablet to accept rides and internet for that tablet. Drivers also must pay for their own gas and insurance.

Drivers want to be reclassified from contractors to employees, a designation they say is required by Kansas City’s contract with the company. Because the drivers are currently considered contractors, they do not qualify for unemployment in Missouri.

Bakar Mohammed is an IRIS driver who helped organize the drivers union. He says they’re on the verge of making the program better for drivers and feels like the city decided to “pull the rug out from under us.”

“It would be catastrophic, not only for me, but hundreds of IRIS drivers,” Mohammed said. “My livelihood is at stake here, not only just as a father and a husband, but as someone who lived in the city for more than 20 years, providing service to the working class and disabled residents of the city.”

Means said the IRIS unionization effort had nothing to do with the proposal to cut the service, and said KCATA would keep it going if the city decides to fund it.

Mohammed said the city and KCATA shouldn’t have to choose between IRIS or bus routes. He said bus and IRIS drivers hope no cuts are made and that the city doesn’t cut the program when riders already face fewer routes than ever.

“We're a team here, our service is to the city, whether it’s as IRIS drivers or bus drivers,” Mohammed said. We're working together as one team to make sure that our public transit systems are fully funded.”