Usually, buses are virtually invisible in politics. So you can imagine my surprise as a former New York City transportation beat reporter when a mayoral candidate who made buses central to his campaign pulled off a shock victory in America’s largest city.
The rising tide in voter enthusiasm for Zohran Mamdani may reflect a little-understood reality about just how essential the buses are to most cities’ transportation systems. Local buses provided 10.6 million trips across the US on the average day in 2024, according to the American Public Transportation Association, which is more than four times the number of people who fly in the US every day. Even in NYC, the subway hogs all the glory, but the bus is the workhorse of the public transit system. About 1.1 million rides are taken every day on NYC buses. It’s the equivalent to the entire population of Boston commuting to and from work every day on the bus.