{"id":182573,"date":"2026-04-01T20:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/182573\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:08:11","slug":"nycs-poorest-residents-would-get-free-subway-and-bus-rides-under-council-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/182573\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC’s poorest residents would get free subway and bus rides under Council plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly 1 million low-income New Yorkers would get free subway and bus rides under a budget proposal announced by the City Council on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Council Speaker Julie Menin said the legislative body wants to expand a city-run program called \u201cFair Fares,\u201d which currently offers half-priced New York City transit rides to residents making less than 150% of the federal poverty line, or about $22,600 a year for a one-person household. Menin said she wants to amend the program to cover the full cost of those rides.<\/p>\n

\u201cFair Fares has been a lifeline for working New Yorkers, providing eligible riders with discounted access to one of our city\u2019s greatest assets: our transit system,\u201d Menin wrote in a statement. \u201cThe Council is making a significant Fair Fares expansion among our top priorities in a budget that is fiscally responsible and invests directly in New Yorkers.”<\/p>\n

The proposal differs from Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s campaign promise<\/a> to eliminate fares from all of the city\u2019s buses. Instead of giving everyone free bus rides, the Council\u2019s plan would help only the city\u2019s poorest residents \u2014 but also give those people free subway rides.<\/p>\n

On the mayoral campaign trail last year, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed the idea of expanding the program<\/a> to fully cover subway and bus rides for low-income people. It was a rebuttal to Mamdani\u2019s plan, which Cuomo criticized as a move that would subsidize the rich.<\/p>\n

Mamdani on Wednesday criticized the Council\u2019s overall budget proposal, which argued the city could close a budget gap of more than $5 billion without cutting services or raising taxes. The mayor has called for the state to increase taxes on wealthy residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny proposal that claims we can close this gap without significant new revenue is unrealistic,\u201d Mamdani wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s current budget allocates $121 million to Fair Fares. Menin\u2019s office did not provide an estimate for how much the program\u2019s expansion would cost.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Edwards, a spokesperson for the mayor\u2019s office, declined to answer questions about the Council\u2019s plan to make subways and buses free for low-income riders and pointed to Mamdani\u2019s statement denouncing the Council\u2019s budget proposal.<\/p>\n

According to the city, more than 370,000 New Yorkers are enrolled in Fair Fares, which was first launched under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. The Community Service Society of New York, which helped create the program, estimates nearly 1 million people are eligible for the program, and MTA officials have said enrolling more people would help reduce fare evasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAutomatic free bus, subway and paratransit for 1 million New Yorkers would transform how people get around,\u201d said Danny Pearlstein, spokesperson for the transit advocacy group Riders Alliance. He also said his group is calling on the city to increase the income limit for Fair Fares to 300% of the federal poverty line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 1 million low-income New Yorkers would get free subway and bus rides under a budget proposal announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-182573","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-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182573","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=182573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}