As a pediatrician in the South Bronx, I see the effect our transit maps have on its users every day. While the city debates priorities among free buses, dedicated bus lanes, and subway expansions, my patients live in the shadow of the Cross Bronx Expressway (CBE), which split communities and saddled the South Bronx with some of the nation\u2019s highest asthma rates.<\/p>\n
Simply put, clean public transportation is a public health intervention for these families.\n<\/p>\n
The NYU Marron Institute\u2019s \u201cA Better Billion\u201d proposal relies on a \u201chousing-led\u201d metric, prioritizing transit where it can catalyze the most new real estate development. Under this logic, neighborhoods are valued for their \u201cupzoning potential\u201d rather than for the needs residents within the neighborhood have.<\/p>\n
To prioritize a developer\u2019s density map over a child\u2019s respiratory health is a moral and policy failure.\n<\/p>\n
Similarly, Zohran Mamdani\u2019s central campaign tenet \u2014 that making buses free will allow commuters improved access to the city\u2019s resources, including healthcare \u2014 treats the symptom rather than the cause.<\/p>\n
I have patients whose asthma isn\u2019t controlled on the strongest therapy we have. They are children facing imminent death because the city will not prioritize them. A free ride to the clinic rings hollow if the transit system itself continues to facilitate the environmental degradation that makes them sick.<\/p>\n
While the \u201cA Better Billion\u201d report is touted as a visionary roadmap for affordability, the Bronx is relegated to the last phase, \u201cPhase 4,\u201d of the project, leaving the Bronx for last yet again, in a long history of leaving the Bronx for last.<\/p>\n
Making changes to the Bronx\u2019s transit infrastructure Phase 4, means making Bronxites wait four decades for much-needed improvements. But we don\u2019t have four decades to wait; we\u2019ve never had any spare time.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve seen it before: Vital immediate-impact projects \u2014 protected bike lane networks and the long-promised \u201ccapping\u201d of the Cross Bronx Expressway \u2014 have consistently taken a back seat to prestige projects like the Interborough Express (IBX) and the Second Avenue Subway expansion.<\/p>\n
When NYC implemented congestion pricing, the MTA and city promised mitigation measures aimed at improving air quality in neighborhoods that might see spillover traffic, including Bronx corridors like the CBE. That included air filtration in schools, roadside greenery, electric truck charging infrastructure, \u201cBlue Highway\u201d (moving freight off trucks and onto waterways to ease truck traffic and diesel emissions through the South Bronx), and a Bronx asthma center.<\/p>\n
However, as of early 2026, many of these measures had not yet been implemented. Even our federal policies are complicit in this stagnation. While congestion pricing is meant to \u201cnudge\u201d commuters toward sustainable choices, the IRS continues to disincentivize cleaner forms of travel.<\/p>\n
Under the current tax code, commuters can use pre-tax dollars for parking or shared Uber rides, yet they are barred from using those same benefits for Citi Bike. We are effectively taxing the very micro-mobility that could alleviate the \u201cPhase 4\u201d wait.<\/p>\n
Planning this far ahead ignores today\u2019s realities, such as infrequent bus and train service, the number of ghost buses are promised and never arrive and how packed stations are.\n<\/p>\n
These failures materialize as a docked hour of pay, a missed appointment that took months to schedule, or a child\u2019s nebulizer treatment delayed while waiting in the freezing wind. This feels like a personal affront to residents who continue to hope that policy will not overlook them.<\/p>\n
To be clear, I am unequivocally in favor of congestion pricing. But the blunt truth is that you cannot price people out of cars without giving them a system that can actually absorb them. Our already packed buses and trains are now even more so, and seem to have more delays than ever before, the city is failing to respond to the demand that it created.<\/p>\n