Mayor Mamdani Lowers Free Bus Price Tag, Touts G Line Expansion as Albany Hedges

New York’s latest push for free buses signals bold ambitions for equitable mobility, but fiscal realities and political headwinds remain daunting as ever.

“You seek, you want, I give.” That was how the late Ed Koch, a famously frugal New York mayor, once summarised the city’s annual rite of “Tin Cup Day”—the ritual trek by city leaders to Albany to plead for more state money. This year, another mayor with Assembly roots, Zohran Mamdani, returned to the Capitol bearing a similar cup in hand but with fresh polish: a proposal for “fast and free” buses, now recosted at a mere $600–$700 million per annum, down from his earlier $800 million estimate.

Mayor Mamdani’s pitch is straightforward. Swap out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) clunky fareboxes on all city buses, subsidise the lost revenue via new or expanded taxes—most likely targeting New York’s well-heeled—and watch as mass mobility improves. In language steeped in promise but prudent in detail, he dangled the prospect of making bus travel wholly free for New Yorkers, expanding eligibility to include both local and express routes, and putting forward a summer pilot during the World Cup influx.

Whether Albany will bankroll his vision remains, as ever, uncertain. Governor Kathy Hochul, herself no stranger to budget wrangling, has so far shown tepid enthusiasm for tax hikes or universal fare abolition, preferring to keep the financial tap half-open. That gap between mayoral aspiration and gubernatorial caution is familiar terrain in the Empire State; public endorsement remains as elusive as the city’s shifting budget projections, which have ostensibly improved from a $12 billion shortfall to a notional $7 billion.

Should the free bus scheme come to pass, the first-order implications for New York are clear enough. Buses, already the MTA’s workhorse—carrying over 2 million passengers on a given weekday—would become a more attractive option, especially for those least able to pay. The threshold for mobility in poorer boroughs, including transit deserts in the outer reaches of Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, would be significantly lowered. A pilot timed for the World Cup could see New York’s famously disjointed regional transport finally made accessible for visitors and locals alike.

The second-order effects, however, bear scrutiny. Free public buses have the potential to tilt the city’s transit balance in meaningful ways. Done right, ridership might rebound from its pandemic-induced torpor and even outstrip pre-COVID figures. Modal shift from private cars—paltry in recent years despite congestion pricing debates—could gather pace, benefitting congestion and emissions, and perhaps even New Yorkers’ long-suffering lungs. But financing remains a hurdle. The sum at stake, $600–$700 million per year, would need to be found amid a still-sizeable budget gap and a city reeling from the costly aftermath of COVID-19, not to mention federal aid that is steadily ebbing away.

Political knottiness abounds. Mamdani’s proposed menu of new or expanded taxes has yet to leave the kitchen, and Governor Hochul’s wariness is matched by a well-honed instinct among the city’s fiscal hawks to block tax hikes. With Assembly allies like Claire Valdez touting expansions to the G train—whose full Brooklyn-Queens loop was cut 16 years prior due to “low capacity”—transport dreams risk being chalked up as whimsical unless accompanied by realistic funding plans. The 2010 cut to G service still rankles some borough residents, who must now trudge across platforms or endure circuitous bus routes.

Nationally, New York’s flirtation with fare-free buses is not wholly without precedent. Kansas City, Missouri, famously waved fares for buses years ago, prompting a minor resurgence in ridership but leaving questions about financial sustainability. Boston’s recent experiments—scrapping fares on selected routes—have produced a modest uptick in use, though the city’s finances have not buckled (yet). Globally, Tallinn in Estonia stands out, having provided free public transport to registered residents for years, generating both applause and grumbles: ridership rose, but traffic congestion remained stubbornly high.

The debate is sharpened when we consider the broader American context, where public transport is habitually underfunded and perennially politicised. New York, unlike Europe’s mass transit paragons, runs its system on a shoestring, often relying on the farebox for a far from gargantuan share of its operating expenses. Fare evasion, once derided as a tepid threat to city coffers, now looms larger with any plan that expands access without clear alternatives for revenue.

A bus plan in search of a political engine

Yet, we reckon, the city’s leadership is right to press for a grander bargain. Public transport is, after all, the city’s circulatory system: the more frictionless it becomes, the easier New Yorkers connect with opportunity, commerce and civic life. That buses remain the slowest in America—pacing at a sluggish 7.8 mph—is testament to the years lost to gridlock and indifference. Data from Transport for London show that fare-free or low-cost buses can help coax stubborn drivers off city roads if paired with measures such as bus lanes, traffic enforcement and regular scheduling.

Therein lies the rub. Free buses alone will not miraculously unclog Manhattan’s arteries or entice the well-heeled out of ride-hails. Absent systematic investments in bus priority, even an influx of new riders could bode poorly: more crowded buses, more chronic delays, and perhaps little net improvement in emissions or journey times. The MTA’s bus reform agenda—network redesigns, electric fleets, all-door boarding—remains as pivotal as the fares themselves.

The mayor’s renewed interest in extending the G train, likewise, ought to be cheered but assessed dispassionately. The cost of such extensions is puny next to mammoth undertakings like Second Avenue Subway, but every dollar must be stretched. The city will need both dogged advocacy and adroit financial engineering to win more capital dollars from Albany, Washington and, most challengingly, its own taxpayers.

It is tempting to view Mamdani’s proposals as further evidence of New York’s perennial appetite for outsized promises with puny odds of fulfilment. That would be too cynical by half. The push for free and equitable mobility reflects genuine aspirations to make the city work for all its inhabitants, not just those near subway hubs or who can stomach ever-rising fares. Still, the laws of fiscal gravity have not been repealed in New York.

For now, Mamdani’s plan remains more blueprint than reality, awaiting not just state largesse but a sustained commitment to overhaul the city’s bus infrastructure. As the mayor, Assembly allies and their tin cups wait for Albany’s reply, New Yorkers might do well to remember that in their city, nothing is ever truly free—not even a bus ride. ■