{"id":133058,"date":"2026-02-13T23:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/133058\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T23:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T23:28:10","slug":"a-bad-case-for-free-buses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/133058\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bad Case for Free Buses"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, the New York Times published an op-ed<\/a> from Emily Galvin Almanza, a former public defender and nonprofit executive, on the supposed benefits of free busing of the kind proposed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. While the Times topped the essay with a utopian thumbnail of dancing pigeons, commuters, and rainbows, Almanza\u2019s argument itself is far short of perfect.<\/p>\n

Almanza makes a case that is long on enthusiasm but light on evidence. As proof of free buses \u201ceasing traffic [and] promoting public safety,\u201d she cites pilot programs in Kansas City, Boston, and New York City. All three experiments failed, leading to huge losses of funds and a worsened commuter experience.<\/p>\n

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In Kansas City, the results<\/a> were especially disastrous<\/a>: homeless residents remained on buses all day, and while assaults on drivers declined, assaults on passengers went up. In Boston, the city\u2019s free buses were notoriously slow<\/a>, \u201ceffectively canceling out the benefits of free fares,\u201d according to one local transit advocacy group.<\/p>\n

Even if these programs had worked, they would be poor models for the Big Apple. New York City\u2019s bus ridership alone\u2014an estimated 1.3 million riders per day<\/a>\u2014more than double the entire population of Kansas City.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s own pilot program, which Almanza quickly references, lost approximately $16.5 million and saw no measurable increase in new ridership, according to the MTA<\/a>. This does not stop Almanza from confidently asserting that \u201cbetter, cheaper, faster bus rides give automobile owners an incentive to leave their cars at home.\u201d The MTA\u2019s own evaluation, released last June, found the program<\/a> far more lackluster.<\/p>\n

Almanza also attempts to argue that free bus programs pay for themselves. She asserts that in Washington State, free busing actually cost nothing: \u201cWhen Washington State\u2019s public transit systems stopped charging riders, in many municipalities the state came out more or less even\u2014because the money lost on fares was balanced out by the enormous savings that ensued.\u201d Her evidence: a 1994 Washington State DOT study that recommended free busing specifically<\/a> \u201cfor small to medium sized transit agencies,\u201d where the cost of enforcing can outweigh the revenues generated. Seattle, by contrast, ended its partial implementation<\/a> in 2012 after losing $2.2 million annually<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The core of Almanza\u2019s case for free buses comes from her work as a public defender. She relates the story of one of her first clients, charged with fare evasion. \u201cPrecious resources,\u201d she writes, \u201chad been spent arresting, processing, prosecuting and trying her, all for the loss of a few dollars. This is a daily feature of how we criminalize poverty in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confusingly, Almanza cites no evidence beyond the anecdotal to support the claim that \u201celiminating bus fares can clear junk cases out of our court system, lowering the crushing caseloads.\u201d Her allusion to the loss of a \u201cfew dollars,\u201d furthermore, belies basic arithmetic: while it is true that one fare evader costs only a few dollars, the total cost of fare evasions was approximately<\/a> $1 billion alone in 2024.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Almanza confuses the criminal-justice implications of fare enforcement on the city\u2019s subways and buses. Bus fares are rarely enforced<\/a>, and that enforcement is carried out primarily<\/a> by unarmed MTA employees who issue summonses. Making buses free, therefore, would not even reduce the backlog of farebeating cases in the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

To prove that fares cause harm, Almanza points to the September 2024 officer-involved shooting of \u201ca fare beater.\u201d She interjects dramatic rhetoric\u2014\u201cpause for a moment to think about that\u201d\u2014but initially omitted the most crucial information: the person in question was holding a knife<\/a> and was asked more than 30 times to drop it before being shot. (An editor\u2019s note appended after publication updated the essay with this information.)<\/p>\n

Lastly, Almanza cites a widely circulated but misleading statistic: that New York City\u2019s free-bus pilot reduced assaults on bus drivers by 39 percent. This implausibly large figure comes from an evaluation of only five bus lines, which reported just 32 assaults over the study period. As City Journal has previously pointed out, assaults on bus drivers also fell<\/a> on regular-fare lines during the same period, raising the question of whether the measured decline was attributable to the free-fare program or a coincidence. And as Kansas City\u2019s experience demonstrates, reduced assaults on drivers may simply displace violence onto other passengers.<\/p>\n

As I wrote<\/a> in City Journal, bus fares in New York City are already relatively cheap, especially given the system\u2019s scale and effectiveness. And discounted fares are available to those who qualify. Offering wishful thinking and anecdotes, Almanza offers a weak case for changing how the city\u2019s bus service.<\/p>\n

Josh Appel<\/a> is a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute.<\/p>\n

Photo by Noam Galai\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a leading free-market think tank. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and City Journal are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, the New York Times published an op-ed from Emily Galvin Almanza, a former public defender and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-133058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}