This is Transit Unplugged.

I'm Paul Comfort, and on today's episode, it's a special on scene

edition, where we head again out to the location of a transit

authority and talk to their leaders.

On this one, I head to Kansas City, Missouri, and speak with Frank White III.

Frank is president and CEO of the Kansas City Area

Transportation Authority or KCATA.

I met him at his headquarters in Kansas City and we were able to talk to his staff

and I interviewed him actually in front of his senior team, talk to him about

the agency, its history, his background.

Then we went outside and got on board their bus rapid transit line.

or the BRT MAX line, where he tells me more about the service.

You'll hear the bus in the background, and it's just one of those great

opportunities to experience firsthand in person what's happening at a major

transit system here in the United States.

Frank is considered a leader in the industry, and you'll know

why when you hear him on this episode of Transit Unplugged.

Now let's join him in front of his staff as we laugh and

joke to get the thing started.

. Hi, this is Paul Comfort.

I am live at the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority's main conference

room with all of Frank White's staff.

Great to be here with you all today.

So Frank and I just had an opportunity to share some of the hot transit

trends happening in the industry.

And actually, I wanted to talk to Frank about what are the

hot trends happening here.

So Frank, thanks for having us in.

Thanks for coming, Paul.

Yeah.

We're also filming an episode of our TV show while we're here and

last night, Frank took me out for some great jazz music here

in Kansas City at the Blue Room.

Yes, we

Frank White III: did.

That was great.

Great music.

Great cocktails.

Yeah, it was great.

And your Chief of Staff's, husband played piano up there.

It was amazing.

Frank White III: Terry just walked in right there.

Yeah,

Terry.

Charles, he was great, man.

That was awesome.

So, Frank, tell us a little bit about yourself and your agency.

Frank White III: I have been here eight years at the KCATA.

I came in as the director of marketing is what brought me here, did that for

a couple of years, won a few awards, and then I got demoted actually.

That's what happens, right?

Yeah, got demoted, even though it was said it was a promotion, but I didn't care

because I was still getting paid the same.

And so it made no difference to me, but, I got put into what we call

business outreach, so to speak.

really trying to go put us In space, we hadn't been before.

we're more in the private sector.

really did a lot of time with the chambers, rotaries,

different things like that.

a lot of, it was government relations, but I didn't really call

it government relations at that time.

did that for a year.

really got some headway with like in Jeff City, our state capital here.

really building those relationships and different audiences related to my

workforce development, then after that got put over to, transit development.

It was, we were a task, myself and Brian Starner.

where TASCO built actually a separate company to focus on TOD,

RideKC Development Corporation.

We did that for four years.

and then shortly after that, the board decided to make a change in leadership.

I was appointed the interim CEO on August 8th, 2022.

And then in January of 2023, I was appointed the permanent CEO at that time.

And, what are some of the most important projects you're

working on right now here at KCATA?

Frank White III: you know, the biggest thing is, you know,

I'm a big Tony Robbins guy.

And he always says, be brilliant at the basics.

And so, my view when I first got in was service delivery.

that was something, end of the day, we're paid to move people.

And where we position from operators to resources to staff to vehicle equipment

to really fulfill that mission first.

Because if you take care of that piece first.

You can do every one after that, but if you don't, it's like an upside down tree.

There's no stability, there's no roots to that.

So, that was the first piece.

The second piece was the financial piece.

You know, again, we got public money, so, there's a higher fiduciary

standard that we've got to adhere to.

And so, if you're going to ask for more stuff, you've

got to earn the right to ask.

so that was a really big push.

And I think as a staff, these guys did a great job.

We're above pre pandemic ridership.

We've been able to, we'll be able to get operators in there.

And so you've seen our service delivery, exceed the pre pandemic averages.

And so I think on that piece, we've done that job.

we cover all those things like that, so now we're like, okay,

how can we do more things?

so our biggest piece now is how to grow our agencies.

We're a bi state agency, seven counties, two states, but how do we grow it?

unfortunately, I would say the ATA was brilliantly designed

in 1966, but poorly executed.

And that we weren't always more than a bus company, but for whatever reason, we

were content to be a bus company instead of being a transportation authority.

And so what we tried to do in the last year and a half is really say, how do

we become, I think Tyler calls it, that regional chamber of transportation, like

regional chamber of commerce, but on the transit side, where we can kind of, you

know, facilitate, convene, really be that leader in transportation in our region.

so that's really kind of the big picture, but as far as the big

projects, we got the route restoration project we're trying to work on.

really trying to figure out how do we create our own funding, right?

that is the big, or I say independent funding, as independent as you can be.

and really try to focus on while we do the bus is that we are a transportation

authority, the regional planning piece, where we're basically the

go to for transit in this region.

and ideally, I don't know if it's possible, but really become truly

independent from all the foolishness.

It never goes away, but how can I've made sure that how we manage our business in a

way that, that it's on us and people have to kind of bend to our will, so to speak.

That's good.

Interesting.

So what are your, we're in, the spring of 2024.

What are your ridership and revenue trends like right now?

Frank White III: Well, ridership wise, we're 100, 105 percent Tyler, over 2019.

Awesome, Frank.

Yeah.

revenue trends is interesting because we don't quit on revenue.

Right.

You don't have fares.

Right.

So, what's

that about?

No, just

kidding.

Frank White III: Oh, we can go there if you want to.

I have no problem with that.

I mean, I mean, it's again, you talk revenues.

You know, all we have is a farebox, which we don't have anymore, so this

is kind of our challenge, is because we don't have control on funding, those

relationships matter with your elected officials, your political officials.

let's say, okay, what's the value?

What do we bring?

Why would you want to partner with us?

to that end, the revenue trends aren't good because we

don't show the revenue, right?

we talk about the fiscal cliff.

And at the time when it would happen, a lot of agencies Well,

you all were one of the first in the country, but then a lot of agencies

went fare free over the pandemic.

but now I think fiscal realities are starting to settle in as all these

federal dollars, billions of dollars, unprecedented, were dumped into the

transit industry over three tranches of funding, starting with the CARES Act and

then, the CRRSA Act and then the ARPA Act.

But most agencies in this year 2024 fiscal year 25, that

money's going to come to an end.

And in a sense, they've been subsidizing transit across

the country at a higher level.

I've done it in Canada too, by the way, Frank, they put in money as long

as the provinces, which are like their states, we're also putting money in,

but that's all going away now, isn't it?

Frank White III: Yeah.

I mean, it just goes back to, you know, Tyler mentioned earlier in your

presentation, my background is not public.

It's private.

I was a sales guy on the business.

and so the numbers have to number out, right?

And I'm sitting there going from the sideline going, this is bad business.

Because this isn't sustainable.

How do you make this work?

And if we were going to go down that path, the conversation should

have been had with the jurisdiction.

Like, is this going to end one day?

Just when, and manage it better.

We did not, I call it COVID crack.

Money is what it was.

Makes you lose your mind.

You got addicted to it.

and so now we're seeing that, that come to an end.

And you're telling, just gotta tell the truth.

You don't like it doesn't mean I'm wrong.

And so we're seeing with all our, the Jersey United's here, but nationally

people are really starting to push back going, how you gonna close your gap?

I'm like, it ain't my gap.

It's yours.

' cause I don't create my revenue.

That's your problem to solve, not mine.

And quite frankly, I could care less.

You don't wanna pay for it.

Okay, fine.

But don't put that on us.

And I think in transit in general, we default to be in the

whipping post for some reason.

I don't understand why.

You know, we go with hat in hand and say, please don't hurt me.

And I'm like, we bring a value that if we weren't here, you couldn't get done.

You needed to get done and you might wanna show us some respect to what we do.

And that's kind of my approach.

You know, you call it speaking freely, but I'm going to defend us

and what we do because I know who works every day and how hard we work.

I know it's a tough industry to work in.

You don't get to diminish it because you don't understand.

And so that's the approach I take on it because I know more than you know, most

of the time in these meetings, I'm going to let you know I know more than you.

And I know what you do and what I do because I got to know what you

do to know how to serve you better.

So, now that might irritate people, but I really don't care, because

again, I'm responsible for this agency, and everybody in this room,

and I'm not going to sit here and let them down by not being ready to be

prepared to defend what we have to do.

and we've had plenty of meetings with city council this week

and explained what's going on.

And I said the same thing you said.

Christ didn't, cost didn't go up, your subsidy's going away.

And we told you it was going away.

And you kept saying, well, how are you going to close it?

Not my problem.

It's yours.

And we're going to make sure if they choose not to do it, we're

going to let the world know that they chose not to do it, not on

us.

in the vision you have of, really turning this agency, turning on the

power, so to speak, of the authority.

Yes.

that's your big vision.

What's the biggest challenge, and how can your staff and your team

help you with those challenges?

Frank White III: There's multiple challenges, but the biggest one is for 51

years, we didn't act like the authority.

So, when people see you as one way and you tried to come out of that box,

they want to keep you in that box.

They want to diminish you to keep you back into being this box right?

And stay in your lane, so to speak.

And we're saying no, because we didn't step into that space, other people did.

And they have a message not wanting us to be in that space.

There's other regional entities, there's other organizations.

That are doing what we do because we let them do it and we're trying to

say, no, we're going to do that now and rightfully so, they're going to push back.

I expect them to push back, but, you know, as they say, to make an

omlette you gotta break an egg, right?

So, I think we were designed to play in that space and so the big challenge

is one, that perception, right?

two is making sure you're in the right rooms when those discussions

are being had because I also see a lot of people talk about us without us.

And transit, transit, transit, and like we got the World Cup coming,

and they said transit was a problem, and no one ever talked to the ATA.

So they got a whole World Cup game with no one ever talking to the ATA.

We had to force our way into the World Cup transit discussion.

And literally, I was on an interview on the radio, and I said, well they

ain't talking to us, we're going to do it ourselves, and then my phone rings,

and Austin's like, you can't say that, and I said, well I already did, what

are we going to do about it, you know?

but we had to be at the table to have that discussion, because we've got the

tools, right, we're the federal designee for transit funding in this region,

we've we've got all these things, we just have never shown the leadership

nor desire to put the work in because our board in 2013, when they went to the

whole ride KC brand, that was the goal, to be a regional entity, to create your

own regional funding, to be the authority in this thing, and we never did it.

I don't know why I wasn't here when it happened, but we didn't do it, and

now this team here is trying to, is not trying, we are doing it actually.

We've got it, we're in a position now where relationship wise, opportunity

wise, we're in the best we ever could have been to go make that case for the

regional transit, regional authority.

there's still some humps, but you know, that's okay.

All right.

Last question.

We'll end on a positive.

What's one of the best things or coolest things happening right now at your agency?

Frank White III: Oh, man.

Well, you're here.

no, I mean, you know, we're getting it done.

I mean, you know, it's not easy.

I know it's not easy.

You know, I looked at it, Brian Beck, right, and I'm amazed he's still

awake because with the ransomware attack, you know, he and his staff,

I mean, they did yeoman's work.

Congratulations, by the way, getting out of that.

Frank White III: Yeah.

No, I mean, so you look at that and you look at, you see all these people,

you know, Marla, what she's doing in facilities, Don over in transportation.

June's probably got the hardest job in, in HR.

Terry's Chief of Staff, corralling me, you know, that, that's a challenge.

I probably wear Cindy out, just all the questions about marketing and

stuff, and I just be bruised to death.

And so, you know, it's just watching people, I like watching

people do what they do best, right?

My thing is to be very decentralized and say, you go do you, what do you

need from me, and I'll go do my thing.

Cause if I gotta do your job, they're what I need you for.

so, we're doing a great job, like I said, with Todd's, the route stuff,

Chuck's out there pushing hard to get these buses out, Richard over

here on the microtransit stuff.

And I did not forget you, Michael Riley, because, you know, in the TOD piece,

and Bryce is our emerging leader, he's our secret weapon, and so he's also

our driver today, that's kind of cool.

But, so we got these great people, and Janet, Keesbee folks, so everybody

So your team is probably the

Frank White III: best thing happening, right?

It's

the best thing, we talked about this in Tulsa, I said, leadership's not about you.

It's about your people and when we, when I came in, the morale was poor, we'd

all be kind of PTSD, so to speak, and the biggest thing is getting people to

realize that we are good at what we do.

We're not bad at what we do.

Absolutely, you guys are leaders.

I mean, we've got award winning people in this room, national award winning

people in this room, and they weren't given a lane to go do what they do.

and so the metrics, by all accounts, we're better than we were a year and a half

ago, and I think the best is yet to come.

Excellent.

Thank you, Frank.

Frank, tell us about your agency, the Kansas City

Area Transportation Authority.

Frank White III: Yeah, the KCATA is a bi state authority created

in 1966 with the Act of Congress.

We cover seven counties and two states.

we can cross jurisdictions, so that allows us to kind of be a

regional transportation program.

we also manage the region under the RideKC brand back here.

So all of our buses throughout the seven counties all say

RideKC for a seamless system.

We've got 620 employees in our agency.

we have local bus service, bus rapid transit, we have three max lines.

We also have paratransit, we have microtransit, we also have the

streetcar that runs the RideKC brand.

While we don't necessarily run the streetcar, we work very

closely with Tom and his team on a host of different issues.

And we have like a flex service as well in our system as well.

So that's pretty much our agency in a broad nutshell.

We also have a broad range of economic development tools that we do use.

We do a lot of TOD work.

Oh, tell me a little about that.

Yeah, and part of the compact, it also had us, we can do, conduit

bond financing, sales tax exemptions on construction materials.

We also eminent domain capacity and land management usage.

So if you understand, you know, transit well enough, really

it's about land management.

And so the other thing is KC, Kansas City, Missouri, the city

is kind of built for transit.

We had over 300 different transit agencies before.

It's 1950 before the highway acts came out.

And so we got to see this really built for the density for transit.

So we try to take our transit corridors, our max lines, and really tried to

do land assemblage and build housing, doing development work, contract

work, which you'll see later today, as well as it creates revenue for

us as well, but also brings that density and brings those riders.

So we're kind of gaming the riding system to get those folks that be on our system.

We found that in Kansas City, Missouri proper, 42 percent of people's

incomes on housing and transit.

So we can kind of whack that transit piece in half.

We can really do a good thing.

We have our four pillars of access, Paul, which is access to

education, employment, health care, and housing with Transit Fulcrum.

TOD satisfies all those different things.

And also, as I mentioned earlier when I was talking to you, it allows us to

try to get that sort of independence as an agency to kind of control our

own fate and our own destiny as well.

You were one of the first agencies in America to kind of

merge paratransit and microtransit in your RideKC Freedom program.

Tell us a little about that and how that's going

Frank White III: now.

it's funny.

It started with a program called Bridge.

you remember Bridge about 2016.

that was like our first foray into microtransit and Tyler Means was

really kind of the guy on that.

we kind of learned some stuff from Bridge and we put RideKC Freedom and paratransit

together once it reduces costs.

But it also is a more efficient way to help people have a better experience

from the ADA side and paratransit side, as well as just the overall,

what I call the customer experience.

And so it's been very, very successful for us.

we have Iris now as well, that's non, paratransit ADA focused, but Roxy

Ridge is something that's always going to make us unique, and we're probably

planning to keep that for a long time.

Where are you taking the agency, Frank?

What is next for you?

Frank White III: what I'm trying to do is really look at transit differently.

I think, I said this seven years ago at an APTA marketing conference,

I felt that public transit would be saved by non transit people.

Alright Frank, we're on your max BRT line, Bus Rapid Transit in

downtown Kansas City . Tell us about BRT.

Frank White III: BRT, for those who don't know, it's Bus Rapid Transit.

Sometimes we kind of walk in our transit talk.

basically what makes BRT unique is, it's basically what I

call reliability on wheels.

Predictable scheduling between 10 to 15 minute headways.

because of our premium service, Wi Fi, all those different things, different colors.

we've got three MAX lines here in KC.

We are right now in the Troost MAX.

We also have the Main Street MAX, which is our first MAX line, brought here in 2005.

This line started in 2011, and the Prospect MAX started in 2019.

So, the cool thing about our MAX lines is, as you can see here, with

that deep federal investment, it's also been catalytic for economic

development on our corridors.

Yeah, so, Bus Rapid Transit is almost like a train, in that it

comes, like how often do your buses come?

Tell me about that.

Frank White III: Yeah, so the schedule is about every 15 minutes.

Okay.

So you don't need to have an app, a schedule.

We have actually better stops, you can see here, these are nicer stops.

All this stuff here is new development that's being redone

because of this investment.

Really?

All right.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

So it's transit oriented development in a sense, isn't it?

Yes it

Frank White III: is.

Because of that predictability, people know, like I said to you before,

good bus routes don't get moved.

So people sometimes say rail's better because it's stable, but a

good bus route like this one that's north south that goes 10 miles.

Okay.

It's just all it's going to spur more development as you'll see as we go

further down the stuff that's going up.

We'll hit probably 35th street here, Armour Boulevard.

You're going to see an amazing spur of growth because of this max line.

And so your BRT lines are in a sense your trunk lines of the system.

Frank White III: Yeah, they're our top three routes.

Okay.

Our BRT lines.

And then do your other bus routes kind of tie into it?

Frank White III: Yes, they feed into it.

we're looking now to want to take some of these max lines, create

new BRT lines going east west.

We're solid north south, we want to start bringing that east west piece.

we look at East of Troost here, that's traditionally been historically

African American neighborhoods.

Troost is kind of the dividing line historically.

Yes.

so we wanted to use the BRT and transit to kind of break down that, that wall, right?

That access piece going to Central KC and then to the west side.

So it's also a great equalizer.

Prior to being CEO here, you were the head of TOD, Transit

Road Development for the agency.

Tell us about your TOD a little bit and the one we went out to.

Frank White III: our compact powers gives a lot of stuff

you can opt for development.

We can do land assemblage, sales tax exemptions, in the domain,

capacity and land management use.

And so, what we try to do is say, well, we might, This would be the actual developer.

We can be catalysts for developments.

We can stabilize places where capital would normally not flow because we're

crossing federal, there's a certain permanence that we get involved.

It's kind of de risking development for developers.

so we were tasked, myself and a guy named Brian Stratton, to create this company.

separate from the KCATA, which we did, and we've probably done seven projects

over half a billion dollars worth of projects, you can see some of these

bookings here, are all a part of stuff that we worked on these projects here

there's a local hospital on Main Street.

Lutheran Hospital have been closed for 25 years.

No one would touch it.

Just the project is too risky.

We partnered with a company called Northpoint and said, Okay, use the

COMTO bond process through us and we can give you certain benefits, guarantees,

federal projects, federal dollars that would de risk it for themselves

instead of using all private money.

But by doing so, we created a new facility that has mixed income housing

tied into the local junior college.

Also for the people I've been there that hadn't made been whole, they're

not been made on the condominium.

So it's a project that Brent Miles would tell you wouldn't have

touched if you had to do all on.

But 'cause we got involved, we were able to share the risk.

It's really a perfect P three.

and so the application out, we'll see if it qualifies.

And everything is based on is it transit focus?

Okay, is transit gonna be viable?

This is gonna be on the street car line, and the better transit or elements it has.

The lower their fees are.

So they get a benefit for doing more TOD.

Um, so they do an application fee and then we, our committee takes a

look at it and then it goes to our board for what we call a first read.

and if the board approves it, then we do about a second read

and that bond gets issued.

So it all has certain things that are all geared towards transit.

And this right here, this is our building too.

This was our daycare center, Metro daycare center.

it was.

It was a, it we're looking to the last 10, actually, unfortunately.

Had to leave because they couldn't get staff, to staff.

The daycares that are, well, right now, we got it on RFI out for it right now.

Okay.

it's a great facility.

Yeah.

Built Federal dollars and, that's Mike Riley's problem now to

figure out what to do with it.

so that's how our TLD works.

sometimes we may own the land, so own the land.

I like us to get more, we own the land ourselves and do more joint ventures.

one.

It gives us a way to create revenue for ourselves.

Yes.

So that's the biggest issue, creating that independent stream of revenue

that most agencies desperately need.

But also we're creating density in the city that's built for density.

which gives us more riders.

Right.

So at the end of the day, it's really like, we want more riders.

And so how do we do it?

We bring more density, we get more housing.

and the fact is, in Kansas City, Missouri, where we are right now,

over 42 percent of people's income goes in housing and transit.

So if we can find a way to reduce that transit cost, bring more money back

into their household, it also makes the economy spur just on that level as well.

And our interview continued.

We videotaped a lot of this interview as well as many more things with his

team and some of the city culture and, discussion with his father, Frank White

Jr., the famous Kansas City Royals baseball player, Golden Glove winner.

we, also, Got to share some great barbecue and jazz music.

You'll get to see it all on our April episode of Transit Unplugged TV, that

this podcast and next week's podcast with Tom Garand, who is the executive

director of the Kansas City Streetcar.

we gave an interview with him as well, and we show you some of the streetcar

and the great union station there as well in this compilation series of a

couple podcasts matched with our TV show.

Know you'll enjoy this great conversation with great leaders

in the Kansas City area.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Transit Unplugged

with our special guest, Frank White, the third, telling us all about KC ATA.

Now, as Paul said, in his closing, we stay in Kansas City for next week.

With Tom Gerend of KCStreetcar.

You're going to listen to Paul, go through historic Union Station.

And then take a ride on the street car to a cafe that wouldn't be there.

If it wasn't for the street car.

And this month, you get to see it all on Transit Unplugged TV on YouTube.

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