Supporters insist
fare-free buses would cut down on conflict, boost safety, and deliver instant relief to the riders who rely on them most. Skeptics, including on-air pundits and transit groups, warn it's a recipe for a massive funding black hole at the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority unless the city locks in a rock-solid revenue source and a workable operational blueprint.New York City bus riders already endure some of the slowest service in the country, despite hauling millions of passengers daily.
As of early 2026,
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has pushed back on Mayor Zohran Mamdani's proposal for citywide free buses, arguing that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) cannot afford the estimated annual loss in fare revenue. "We’re the biggest ridership, and yet we're subject to the slowest buses. It's a fundamental unfairness. It's an embarrassment,"
Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director at the
Riders Alliance, told Fox News Digital during a bus ride through the Bronx.
That grim track record is exactly why Mamdani's idea has political legs. Pearlstein noted that bus riders, often students, seniors, and caregivers, are squeezed for both time and cash, just like drivers or subway users. Yet buses have been shoved to the back burner on city streets for years.
"That is why this administration's call for fast and free buses resonates," he added. Pearlstein's take, along with others, anchors Fox News Digital's "The Rise of Socialism" series, which spotlights how socialist ideas are creeping into debates and policies in big American cities. Advocates lead with safety and less drama. Multiple sources pointed out that fare disputes routinely spark tension between riders and operators.
"When you eliminate fare payments on the buses, the friction between passengers and the drivers goes away," said Brian Fritsch, associate director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC). "It does create a safer atmosphere for drivers. That has been a sore spot for a number of years."
Brian Fritsch told Fox News Digital that his organization needs to see a more "concrete plan" and determine funding streams for free busing before they take a position on the proposal.
Transit analyst Charles Komanoff, who crunched the numbers on Mamdani's free bus idea, backed that up, pointing to past assaults on drivers over fare issues.
"Every year, there’s maybe a dozen cases in which a bus driver is assaulted," Komanoff said. "Presumably that would shrink or maybe disappear entirely if there was no expectation to pay the fare in the first place."
Advocates also lean on data from the
city’s recent fare-free bus pilot, rolled out in late 2023 under a state budget mandate. The MTA picked one local route per borough, ditched fares for nearly a year, and brought them back in September 2024.
MTA's review showed ridership jumped on all five routes, about 30 percent on weekdays and closer to 40 percent on weekends. But most of the gains came from current riders making extra trips, not hordes of new users flooding in. The nine-month experiment cost around $12 million in lost fares and extras.
The pilot lays bare the free-transit debate in stark terms: ditching fares can spike usage, but it punches a real hole in the budget and doesn’t magically unleash massive new demand. Expand it citywide, and the cash has to come from taxpayers, Albany, or slashed services elsewhere.New York City is losing close to $1 billion in
fare evasion a year. This is roughly the same cost as Mamdani's free and fast bus proposal. However, skeptics say the government must find long-term revenue streams to make fare-free buses successful. Pearlstein argued the pilot still proved free buses are safer and more popular, even if they’re no cure-all.
On affordability, supporters say it would deliver real help to low-income New Yorkers using buses for short, must-do trips.
"Most of the cost of bus operations is already paid for by public subsidies, not by fares," Pearlstein said. "We're collecting several hundred million dollars at the fare box, compared to several billion already invested. What we're replacing is an order of magnitude smaller than what we already raise from other sources."
Komanoff noted most extra trips from free fares wouldn't swap out car rides but would let people take journeys they currently skip.
"We want people to have the basic right to the city," he said.
Supporters add that no fares could shave boarding times and allow all-door loading, modestly speeding things up.
Komanoff's modeling pegged fare-free gains at roughly 7 to 12 percent faster buses. Not revolutionary, but a solid win for daily riders.
"That would be a material improvement in the lives of the two million New Yorkers a day who ride the buses," he said.
Even backers admit speed and reliability trump price every time.
Transit economist Charles Komanoff said he believes Mamdani's bus proposal will essentially generate "free money" via time saved per passenger. "Let’s be clear," Komanoff said. "Making the buses work better, having them be speedier, more reliable, more consistent, is probably more important than making them free. But I think we can do both."
The real killer? Money.
"If there were to be a free bus program, there would need to be some additional revenue coming into the MTA," Fritsch said. "They obviously couldn't just make cuts to make up that loss." Bus fares back MTA's long-term bonds, so scrapping them means reworking financing structures, not just plugging an annual gap.
PCAC has flagged over 20 possible revenue ideas for fare-free buses, but Fritsch stressed the real hurdle is political willpower and city-MTA coordination.
"The mayor has initiatives, the MTA is a state agency," he said. "They need to meet somewhere in the middle."
Komanoff pushed for city taxpayers, not suburban commuters or the MTA, to foot the roughly $800 million annual tab.
"That's not chump change," he said. "But it’s not a game changer for the city’s finances either." Mamdani, a self-described
democratic socialist, spins the funding debate through his ideological filter: make essentials free and accessible by jacking up taxes on corporations and the rich. His platform hammers redistribution and bigger government in daily life, casting fare-free buses as a public right, not a paid service.
Critics call that view naive about real-world operations.
Charlton D'Souza, founding president of Passengers United and a southeast Queens native, fears free buses could set dangerous expectations for a system already short on drivers, plagued by old equipment, and delivering spotty service.
"We don't have enough bus drivers. Trips are not getting filled," D'Souza said. "If you make the buses free, people are going to expect a service."
He flagged accountability and budget risks, citing past cuts in tough times.
"I lived through the 2008 budget cuts," D'Souza continued. "They cut bus routes; they cut subway lines. When elected officials talk, they don't always understand the operational dynamics."
Skeptics question who really wins from universal free fares. It could subsidize folks who don’t need help while starving targeted aid.
"If somebody's making $100,000 or $200,000 and they're getting a free ride, how is that equitable?" D'Souza said, pushing instead to expand the city’s
Fair Fares program.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is widely described as a democratic socialist. His campaign materials frame an affordability agenda funded by "taxing corporations & the 1%" and includes other major redistributive goals.
Critics see free buses as a symptom of a larger slide toward democratic socialism, turning user-fee services into taxpayer-funded entitlements, severing usage from payment, and ballooning government’s grip on daily economics.
Supporters frame it as justice against inequality. Skeptics see a governing philosophy obsessed with redistribution over market sense, risking endless public bailouts.
Still, even wary voices admit Mamdani has moved the needle.
"I liked his positivity, his can-do attitude," Komanoff said, recalling first encountering Mamdani years ago at a rally in favor of congestion pricing. "He didn’t seem stuck in the usual parameters of politics."
If you enjoy Brain Flushings and would like to subscribe or Buy Me a Coffee, or even check out the sponsors on this page, I would appreciate it, as it supports my work and my coffee drinking habit. No pressure and subscribing is free.Whether that energy becomes actual policy hinges on nailing down stable cash, fixing operational messes, and getting Albany on board.
For now, Mamdani's free bus dream sits at the crossroads of bold promises and cold math: popular with riders, tempting to advocates, but buried under fiscal and logistical landmines. As Fritsch summed it up: "There's no shortage of ideas. The question is where exactly the money comes from and who actually has the political courage to make it happen."
Posts
