Danna York was tired of feeling like an inconvenience.
When she wanted to leave her home in Waverly and head to Lincoln for errands or for fun, she’d have to get a ride from a friend or family member.
But everything changed around 2013. That’s when York, legally blind since birth, learned about the Lancaster County Public Rural Transit program. It offers curb-to-curb transportation throughout the county and several nearby towns. The only condition — one stop must be outside of Lincoln city limits.
“It has just been wonderful,” York said. “And the drivers, they really try to accommodate the riders, and they do their best to make everything convenient.”
Nebraska’s 49 rural transit agencies, spread throughout six regions, are often a lifeline for rural residents like York, particularly those who are disabled, elderly or impoverished. Anyone can request a ride, and the price — sometimes as low as $2 — makes it affordable.
But that lifeline has started to fray, driven by increasing costs and federal funding that has remained largely flat over the last few years. On the heels of 30% budget reductions last year, transit agencies received word from the Nebraska Department of Transportation this spring that another round of cuts is coming in fiscal year 2027.
Lancaster County transit officials are looking at a $44,000 shortfall they hope to plug with county funding. Southeast Nebraska’s Blue Rivers Public Transportation System, one of the largest in the state, is receiving $262,000 less than requested and expects to start in the hole in July. Scotts Bluff County Public Transit, known as the Tri-City Roadrunner, is losing $300,000.
Transit agencies are raising fares, cutting service hours or considering closing altogether.
“It is heartbreaking for us, just as much as it is for the transit systems,” said Jodi Gibson, local assistance division manager with NDOT. “We’re trying to do everything that we can.”
Lancaster County hasn’t raised fares or cut services, but without additional funding, tough decisions could be on the horizon. And that would impact people like York.
“It isolates people that are not able to be out in society,” she said.
Money dries up
The pop-up message on the Blue Rivers Area Agency on Aging website in early June didn’t mince words.
“We Need Your Help!”
The pop-up noted costs for food, supplies and fuel continue to rise, while federal funding does not.
“Please consider donating so we can continue our services.”
Carla Frase, the organization’s director, can remember a less precarious time. Through most of her nearly 40 years working at the Beatrice-based agency, there was enough cash to go around for rural transit. Only last year, she said, a Department of Transportation contractor advised the agency to budget for a 10% increase in expenses to meet growing demand.
Later that same year, the agency was blindsided by the 30% cut. The money, it seemed, had finally dried up — right as Nebraska needed it most.
“It was like $250,000 for us,” Frase said. “And so it was huge, and we were already trying to look for ways to cut.”
The funding reductions came as a result of multiple contributing factors, said Gibson, the NDOT division manager. Since fiscal year 2022, the state’s annual federal funding has hovered between $11.1 million and $11.9 million. Of that, 15% goes to intercity bus services. That typically leaves around $9 million to be split among the 49 rural transit agencies.
While funding has remained stagnant, costs have not. Neither has demand. The program serving Lancaster County is seeing around an 8% increase in boardings each year, according to Randall S. Jones, director of Aging Partners in Lincoln, which manages the transit program. The Tri-City Roadrunner in Scotts Bluff County recorded a 20% spike in boardings from fiscal year 2024 to 2025, according to transit manager Curtis Richter.
For several years, the impending financial crunch was obscured by unspent money from previous years and $18 million in COVID-19 stimulus funds, according to Gibson.
“Well, once we got through all the CARES (COVID relief) money, and we were requesting budgets from our transit systems, we just didn’t have enough money to even fund their requests,” she said.
Local burden
Nebraska’s rural transit agencies receive three streams of funding for reimbursable expenses: federal, state and local match dollars. Usually, local matches from counties, cities or villages represent the smallest piece of the pie and cover what the others don’t.
But with federal and state dollars stretched thin, agencies are looking for greater support from local governments. Nebraska’s cities and counties are feeling their own financial strain.
“When you go back to counties and ask for extra money, (they say) ‘Well, we don’t have it, we can’t give you any extra money,’” said Frase with the Blue Rivers Area Agency on Aging.
In mid-May, Jones with Lincoln Aging Partners informed the Lancaster County Board that the rural transit program would need $44,000 in additional funding for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. Data shared with commissioners showed that federal funding has nosedived by 44% in the past two fiscal years. The county has not made any final decisions about the budget. But commissioners, like their counterparts across the state, expressed concern about the request for more funding amid a tight budget.
“The county board’s always been very supportive of this program,” Jones said in an interview. “So, I think they see the need, and our hope is that they’ll come forward with our request, but it’s part of that budget decision-making process.”
Richter, the Tri-City Roadrunner transit director, came to the Scotts Bluff County Board with a different kind of ask. He had drafted a letter to Nebraska’s congressional delegation, imploring them to help with the funding shortfall. Now, he wanted the board chairman’s signature. He got unanimous approval.
Richter, who also serves as president of the Nebraska Association of Transportation Providers, said he wasn’t aware of any other counties who had sent letters, but noted “all of us right now are tied up with trying to get our budgets in line.”
Fares increase, services decrease
The Tri-City Roadrunner is turning riders away.
By noon, the system serving Scotts Bluff County is usually booked for the next day. With budget cuts, it has capacity for only 125 rides — if you’re the 126th caller, you’re out of luck.
At the same time, the transit agency is in the process of raising fares, bumping in-town trips from $2 to $3 and further increasing costs for out-of-town trips.
The agency has heard from a half dozen irate residents, Richter said. Agency employees try to explain that they’re doing the best with what they have. They also recommend the angry residents contact their elected officials.
“There’s definitely a level of frustration,” Richter said.
The Blue Rivers Public Transportation system has also raised rates and cut service hours in several of the southeast Nebraska towns it serves. It isn’t enough to staunch the bleeding, and Frase said they will need to dip into reserve funds.
Blue Rivers, which provides transit services in Gage, Jefferson, Nemaha, Otoe and Thayer counties, is among the largest agencies in the state. In May alone, it provided 1,760 trips to 1,076 residents. For many, the service allows them to stay in their homes and maintain their independence.
“We know we’re doing good work,” Frase said. “We want it to continue, and the people we serve will be the ones the most hurt when we have to make these difficult decisions.”
A waiting game
Jones in Lancaster County doesn’t have to look far to see the need for public rural transit.
There are residents like York, who rely on the bus for social outings and errands. There are others who use it to get to work. And even more who depend on the transit service to deliver them to medical appointments.
While the program records significantly fewer boardings than others in the region, it’s poised to grow. Lancaster County is aging rapidly, driven by a large population of baby boomers. Jones said the number of people over the age of 60 in the area increases by around 1,200 each year.
The agency is projecting it will log more than 2,000 boardings this year. Jones doesn’t expect demand to go down anytime soon.
But in order to sustain that growth, the program needs funding. Agencies are closely watching as a proposed federal transportation funding bill makes its way through Congress.
The five-year legislation would reauthorize funding for a number of federal transit programs, including the one that supports Nebraska’s rural transit agencies. It’s unclear yet how much money the state would receive.
Gibson with NDOT said she’s skeptical they will see a significant increase. And without that support, agency leaders fear more service cuts are an inevitability.
NDOT is working with rural transportation officials this year to prepare. Gibson acknowledged the agency didn’t have a clear funding formula in place prior to budget constraints becoming a reality, a fact that frustrated transit providers. Now, they’re convening a working group to provide feedback on what the formula should look like in the future.
For now, agencies are gritting their teeth, looking for outside funds and preparing for the worst.
“It’s going to be some hard, hard decisions,” Frase said, “unless money rains down on us from somewhere.”
1 Comment
Over the last several days, Flatwater produced several great articles, which would even qualify as competent investigations too. First was the update on the situation at the Kearney youth detention facility. And then they even went as far as to write an article about the recent terrorist plot which was planned from right here in Nebraska, a topic I specifically had said in these comment sections would be wise for them to investigate. These articles were well written, detailed, provided new information that wasn’t available from other media outlets and didn’t attempt to sway the reader to any particular political viewpoint. Those are articles that Flatwater can proudly say fit their mission statement to write “investigations” that “matter.”
But as seems to always happen when Flatwater impresses me, they shortly thereafter return to their usual shenanigans. If it isn’t a goofy article they borrowed from The Onion to tell me that guys with man buns like playing frisbee in the park, then it’s thinly veiled political propaganda which clearly supports one specific democrat talking point without any effort to present the opposite side of the debate.
Consider the following:
#1: This is at least the third recent piece that Flatwater has written on public transportation. Every one has been a glowing review of the alleged benefits of public transportation, while being completely silent on the question of drawbacks of public transportation. The only attention given to the costs of public transportation is to bemoan the lack of public funding, with no inquiry into if the majority of taxpayers would be willing to pay for that funding.
#2: This article, like all too many Flatwater articles, begins with a gripping emotional anecdote. By opening the story this way Flatwater is attempting to manipulate the reader into accepting the idea that the situation at hand is a terrible tragedy before the reader has even been given the facts. Which is why these anecdotes are always sad tales of people allegedly suffering because of an insufficient amount of taxpayer dollars shoved into their pockets.
#3: The article admits that COVID funds are an element of the problem, but it downplays this element while leaving several other plot holes unexplained. If COVID funds were temporarily masking the issue as they say, then that means this problem actually existed for many years and is not a recent development, merely something only now receiving attention because the COVID gravy train finally ran out of steam.
#4: Related to the above point, the article says there is increasing demand for public transportation services, but it provides no explanation of what is driving this increasing demand. I personally suspect this plot hole could be explained by the aging baby boomer population. That generation may be increasing demand right now because they are growing increasingly dependent on government services as they age, but what will happen in 5, 10 or 20 years down the road as that generation dies off? What is the future projection of demand for these services?
#5: The article ultimately only covers one side of the story. It bemoans that if you are the 126th caller, you have to schedule your ride for another day and pay an extra dollar. And we are all supposed to be very sad and alarmed about this fact. But no thought is given to the possibility that there may be a different way to analyze these facts. Do taxpayers actually want to foot the bill for public transportation services (which only a small minority of people ever use)? Will sending letters to the state legislature begging for more money do any good, considering that the legislature can’t even balance the budget as it is? And even if the state legislature wanted to fund public transportation, how would they get the money when activists fight tooth and nail against cash transfers that might take funding away from their other pet projects? No such questions are raised or answered here, you are just told to be sad that public transportation is going to cost an extra dollar and to demand immediate action from your elected representatives!*
*(The same elected representatives who have never solved any other problem you have tried to call to their attention.)