{"id":319689,"date":"2025-10-20T22:58:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/319689\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T22:58:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:58:23","slug":"new-yorkers-dont-care-if-buses-are-free-they-want-transit-that-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/319689\/","title":{"rendered":"New Yorkers Don\u2019t Care if Buses Are Free. They Want Transit That Works"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Yorkers want<\/a> better public transportation and a more affordable city. Politicians argue<\/a> that fare-free buses will deliver both. But eliminating fares could cost the city $1 billion<\/a>, depriving it of revenue that could be used to make transit faster.<\/p>\n

What do riders really want? I spoke to dozens of New York bus passengers as well as Eric Goldwyn, an economist and program director at NYU\u2019s Marron Institute who has floated a vision for going \u201cBeyond Free Buses<\/a>.\u201d What I found is that many New Yorkers aren\u2019t asking for free buses; they want a transportation system that works. For that to happen, Gotham needs to think bigger than abolishing fares.<\/p>\n

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Kassandra Juarez rides the bus daily from her home in the East Bronx to work in Manhattan. The fare isn\u2019t her main concern with the buses. Her biggest problem, she says, is that they \u201ctake forever to come;\u201d and when they do come, they\u2019re \u201coften crowded and sometimes a little dirty.\u201d Because she needs to transfer buses, her commute takes over an hour each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the buses were to run more frequently, I could probably save 40 minutes each day that I spend waiting,\u201d she said, adding that she\u2019d be willing to pay \u201ca dollar or two more\u201d for more frequent buses.<\/p>\n

Luisa Cinco, a rider of the Q32, echoed those concerns. \u201cYou always have to wait a long, long time for it to come,\u201d she told City Journal in Spanish. As for Hoyin Tong, a rider of the M55, her concern was \u201cnot so much the price\u201d but the fact that the buses were \u201csuper slow, even in bus lanes.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked whether she\u2019d support fare-free buses, she suggested that it would be better to focus on bus speeds. \u201cThere are programs for those who can\u2019t afford the fares,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bus riders across the city voiced similar themes: the need for speed, frequency, and reliability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say no if it were cheaper,\u201d said Edward Xu, a rider of the M1 bus, \u201cbut really it\u2019s fine and I\u2019d prefer if it went to more places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advocates<\/a> of fare-free transit say that their plan would make buses faster, since riders wouldn\u2019t need to take time to pay the fares. That theory doesn\u2019t hold up in practice. Average route speeds fell<\/a> slightly during New York\u2019s fare-free bus pilot, which ran from 2023 to 2024, owing to a 30 percent increase in weekday ridership.<\/p>\n

Writing in The Nation<\/a>, mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani and New York State Senate deputy majority leader Michael Gianaris note that 23 percent of riders reported riding the bus during the pilot \u201cbecause it was free.\u201d They see this as success, but eliminating fares induces more people to choose busing as their mode of transport, resulting in overcrowding and delays that penalize people who have no choice but to ride the bus. For example, during the pilot, 45 percent of free-bus riders<\/a> said that they would have walked or not made the trip if it weren\u2019t free.<\/p>\n

Without fare revenue, local policymakers will also struggle to expand or improve Gotham\u2019s transportation system. Fares account for 25 percent<\/a> of the nearly $20 billion<\/a> it takes to operate the MTA. Without fares, the city will likely need to rely on tax hikes\u2014a state prerogative\u2014to finance future investment in the bus system, limiting the MTA\u2019s ability to invest in new services and make necessary adjustments quickly. As Zakhary Mallett writes<\/a> in Vital City, \u201cThe most direct way to correct our conundrum of never having enough money to maintain transportation is to economize how we provide and finance it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proponents\u2019 claims notwithstanding, \u201cfast\u201d and \u201cfree\u201d are trade-offs: cheaper (or free) buses mean less long-run investment in things that could dramatically speed up transportation in the city.<\/p>\n

The alternative that NYU\u2019s Goldwyn has proposed<\/a> would allow the city to expand ridership among poorer New Yorkers while retaining fares. He argues that the MTA should increase uptake of Fair Fares\u2014a program that provides half-price fares for low-income New Yorkers but is used by only 34<\/a> percent of eligible residents\u2014while investing existing revenue in more frequent buses, consolidated bus stops, and all-door boarding.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Goldwyn called on the city to expand its subway system to divert demand from bus routes. \u201cThere are busy bus corridors that could justify subway expansion,\u201d he said. \u201cNew York should be looking at expanding the Second Avenue Subway to the west side of 125th Street,\u201d he argued, echoing a proposal floated<\/a> by Governor Kathy Hochul last year. He also proposed expanding the subway to Fordham Road to divert demand from the Bx12, which has one of the city\u2019s slowest routes but some of its highest ridership figures.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend to think of buses and subways as compartmentalized modes of transit,\u201d he said. \u201cWe should be looking at these things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proponents of universal fare-free buses also ignore how, for many New Yorkers, the buses are effectively already free. Today, roughly half<\/a> of riders beat the fare.<\/p>\n

As a regular rider of New York City\u2019s buses, I\u2019ve seen that fare-beating rates vary dramatically based on location. On the M7 route, which runs through the Upper West Side, for example, almost all riders pay the fare. On the Bx9, in the Bronx, by contrast, roughly ten riders skipped the fare for every rider that I observed paying.<\/p>\n

Before the pandemic, the city collected close to $1 billion<\/a> in fare revenue; it could arguably reach a similar total today with proper enforcement. Those foregone funds could help fund projects that cut commute times for outer borough residents. It would take just five years of fare revenue, for example, to cover the cost of the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway extension<\/a>. If New York learned<\/a> to build more subways affordably, those funds would go even further.<\/p>\n

Making buses fare-free will hinder the city\u2019s ability to invest more systematically in transportation. New Yorkers aren\u2019t demanding free buses. Instead, they want the city to be far more ambitious in building a system that works reliably and efficiently.<\/p>\n

Adam Lehodey<\/a> is an investigative reporter at City Journal, covering governance, economics, and cultural affairs in New York City.<\/p>\n

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