This Idaho city votes to kill funding for public transportation

Commuters in Nampa may face a harsh new reality next year. At the July 15 City Council budget meeting, council members voted to move forward with a plan to cut city funding to Valley Regional Transit, the sole provider of public bus service in the Treasure Valley.

As the city of Nampa seeks to tighten its belt ahead of approving its budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, City Council members asked VRT to find ways to reduce costs while continuing to provide thousands of rides to residents each year.

VRT currently offers several services to Nampa residents. It has a fixed route bus, the 42, that connects the Happy Day Transit Center in Caldwell to the Boise Towne Square mall. That alone serves about 1,000 regular riders, providing 17,000 rides each year, according VRT records.

“We do our best to accommodate the needs of the City Council, and our funding is ultimately their prerogative,” Elaine Clegg, CEO of Valley Regional Transit told the Idaho Statesman. “But we’ve been in the Treasure Valley for almost three decades, and we’d very much like to continue serving residents in Nampa.”

In its budget request, VRT initially asked the city for $857,000 to continue operations, a 0.6% decrease from what was approved last year but still would have increased ridership by 72% and decreased the price of each ride by 42%, Clegg said. After City Council members asked VRT to return with a reduced budget request, VRT returned in June with an ask of $498,522.

“Even then, we would’ve still been able to increase ridership a little, and reduce costs to riders by 47%,” Clegg said. “We’re using a new algorithm to schedule the rides, which would allow us to be more efficient and to provide more shared trips during peak hours. Think of it like the reduction in the cost of a TV as the technology to make them gets better and cheaper.”

The new plan would have adjusted VRT’s On-Demand ride booking service, which includes van pools and ride hailing services. The new plan also would have eliminated the express bus service between Nampa and Boise, placing a heavier burden on VRT’s On-Demand, Access and Beyond Access programs. Nampa City Council also considered cutting the On-Demand program.

“Apparently, there’s a belief that the people who are using On-Demand can just shift to Beyond Access,” Clegg said. “Two things wrong with that: one, they may not be qualified, and two, Beyond Access is already at full capacity.”

Nampa could continue to fund both its fixed route and On-Demand service or accept a revised proposal that only included On-Demand, but City Council voted 4-2 to eliminate its services to the city completely.

Public transportation a ‘difficult sell’

The argument made by some council members was that the benefits of continuing to work with VRT didn’t rise to the same level of importance as other city projects.

“If we had all the money in the world, I’d love to fund public transit and a multitude of other services,” council member Sebastian Griffin, who voted in favor of cutting VRT funding, told the Statesman. “But we don’t have that option.”

Nampa City Council is more focused on “critical infrastructure, deferred maintenance and public safety,” Griffin said.

Griffin said Nampa is also cutting funding to other budgets: its economic impact fund, its contract with the Association of Idaho Cities, the City Council budget and the budget for the public library.

The question of whether to continue funding VRT has been wrapped up in an ongoing improvement project at 16th Avenue, where one of the Route 42 buses has a permanent stop. In order to get federal funding to move the project forward, Nampa relied on its partnership with VRT to qualify for a $701,747 Reconnecting Accessibility and Improving Safety and Equity grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Defunding VRT would force Nampa to put the project on hold until it can find other sources of federal funding to complete the project, which has been ongoing since 2024.

“The decision to continue to provide public transit should not be dependent on whether that project is there,” Clegg said. “It should be because it’s the best thing for the people of Nampa.”

Real consequences vs. shifting priorities

Many of the people who use VRT services in Nampa rely on public transport every day.

On June 22, VRT held an open house and public hearing at the Nampa Civic Center to hear from residents about how they can meet the needs of riders while accommodating the new constraints from the city. Four members of the VRT board and Clegg were present, and they heard from eight residents who depend on VRT, including Jenny Franco.

Franco, a Nampa resident and kidney transplant patient, told the board that she relies heavily on the free door-to-door Beyond Access service VRT provides for her regular medical appointments. Without their services, her situation would become dire.

“The one thing that keeps me alive is VRT On-Demand Access,” Franco said. “To take away any of these routes is going to hurt us no matter how you look at it.”

When it came down to it, two dissenters, City Council members Dale Reynolds and Natalie Jangula, voted against the decision to cut VRT’s budget.

“It’s hard for council members to sympathize with something that we don’t deal with on a daily basis, but this is going to have a huge impact on a lot of people in our community,” Jangula told the Statesman.

Before the budget is finalized, residents will be able to weigh in on the proposed cuts at the public budget hearing scheduled for Aug. 17 at Nampa City Hall.

VRT will have a public hearing on Aug. 4 at Happy Day Transit Center in Caldwell covering what changes they’ll be forced to make if the cut is finalized. Other services that receive federal funding such as Commuteride will continue, city officials confirmed.

“Some folks are couching this as savings for the taxpayers,” Clegg said. “‘We’ve saved you this much money because we’re not spending it on Valley Regional Transit.’ In fact, they haven’t saved any money at all. They’re just shifting their priorities.”