New York City’s Democratic nominee for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is running on some eye-catching promises. One of them is free public buses.
Mamdani argues that ending fees on buses, whose 2 million daily riders are disproportionately low-income, would allow the system to move more people — and more quickly, while relieving financial strain on the neediest.
It’s a controversial proposal with a tricky political path to implementation, one that a few US cities, such as Boston and Kansas City, have tried.
Mamdani and other proponents point to New York City’s recent yearlong free bus pilot, which he pushed for as a state legislator, in which one route in each of the five boroughs exempted all riders from the normal $2.90 fare.
The experiment resulted in a 30% increase in weekday riders and a 38% increase in weekend riders on the free buses, although many of these riders simply shifted from paid to unpaid routes. There was also a nearly 40% reduction in assaults on bus drivers, altercations that often stem from a dispute over fare evasion, according to an MTA report.
Meanwhile, critics say making all of the city’s buses free — to the tune of about $700 million a year — isn’t financially feasible or the best use of taxpayer money.
How other US cities have fared without fares
Kansas City was the first major metro in the US to fully support free fares in 2019, with Boston following in 2022 with a few prominent routes eliminating fees. Some smaller cities, like Alexandria, Virginia, and Tucson, Arizona, have also implemented free bus rides, but not at the scale of Mamdani’s plan.
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In Kansas City, reports of safety and security incidents dropped by 39% in the first year of zero-fare rides. Riders in Boston also saved, on average, $35 a month through the first year of implementation, according to a press release from the Boston Transportation Department.
Kansas City bus riders like Joy Mart, a 28-year-old software engineer, told Business Insider the program is essential, especially for those looking for a job or on a fixed income. Mart lost their job a few years ago, and said that as a newcomer to Kansas City, the free buses helped them tremendously.
“It was just so helpful, since you know, we’re counting pennies at that point,” Mart said. Riders previously paid $50 for a monthly pass or $1.50 per ride.
Mart is a leader with Sunrise Movement KC, an activist group that advocates for economic, climate, and racial justice. The group also supports and is petitioning for zero-fare buses at a time when some of its critics’ biggest concerns are playing out. Due to budget shortfalls, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and the City Council approved reimplementing $2 fares to avoid major service cuts and driver layoffs. While the city already funded free buses for the next six months, after this period, the City Council will either rescind its plans or move forward with cutting services and bringing back fares.
Indeed, funding remains the largest hurdle for many cities. Kansas City residents already pay for the free bus system through a sales tax reallocation. The ⅜-cent sales tax funded about 30% of the free bus fare program and will continue through 2034, according to the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority.
In New York, the mayor doesn’t have control over the MTA, which is a state agency, but Mamdani has said he hopes to partially fund the program in part by collecting overdue fines on landlords. A spokesperson for the Mamdani campaign didn’t immediately return BI’s request for comment.
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The MTA is already juggling a slew of urgent priorities, including desperately needed large-scale infrastructure improvement projects. Without a sustainable funding source, the program won’t deliver what it promises, Zhan Guo, a professor of urban planning and transportation policy at NYU, told Business Insider. But Guo also wants to see more evidence that free buses would be more reliable and efficient than the current system.
“This idea is very appealing to the general public, but I also feel there are actually many other options we haven’t fully explored or utilized,” he said.
Guo thinks a Mamdani administration would be wise to start by expanding on the pilot program to test the waters. Regardless of whether Mamdani fulfills his key campaign promise, Guo said, it’s a “very good time to talk about fare policy.”
“I like the fact that public transit, bus fares, such a very technical topic, became so visible in the mayor’s campaign,” Guo said. “This is actually a wonderful opportunity to engage the public.”
Helping low-income New Yorkers
Proponents of free buses point to a slew of potential upsides to the policy. For one, buses tend to serve neighborhoods with poor access to trains and low-income populations who could spend their savings from bus fares on other essentials.
Low-income New Yorkers are already eligible for half-price bus and subway fares through the MTA’s Fair Fares program. But only about 38% of eligible people use the program. At the same time, nearly half of riders evade bus fares, costing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — the state agency that runs the city’s subways and buses — hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
The equipment and personnel needed to collect fares are costly, too. Mamdani has pointed to the Staten Island Ferry, which has been free to ride for the last nearly 20 years, as an example of fare-free transit, which was made that way in part because collecting fares was too expensive.
Mamdani and other supporters of the policy argue that buses can board passengers more efficiently without fares, keeping them on time and moving quickly while reducing conflict between bus drivers and riders evading the fare.
“Some people see a tension between fast and free buses, but we shouldn’t have to choose,” Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the grassroots transit group Riders Alliance, told Business Insider. “We should be able to have both buses that move and buses that people can afford and that are worth paying for, even if not everyone or no one has to pay for them.”
