{"id":189667,"date":"2026-04-08T15:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189667\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T15:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:34:19","slug":"zohran-mamdani-backs-down-on-campaign-promise-of-free-nyc-buses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189667\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani backs down on campaign promise of free NYC buses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stand on the brakes.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to have conceded he won\u2019t be able to deliver his <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/21\/us-news\/kathy-hochul-talking-with-zohran-mamdanis-team-about-free-nyc-buses\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">promise of free buses<\/a> this year \u2014 despite it being a cornerstone of his campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Mamdani\u2019s highly touted demands for free buses have fallen by the wayside in both state and <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/02\/us-news\/mamdani-inserts-true-believer-into-historically-non-partisan-budget-office\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">city budget proposals.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39025103\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/new-york-city-mayoral-candidate-125235112.jpg\" alt=\"New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on a bus.\" class=\"wp-image-39025103\"  \/>NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to be conceding that his promise of free buses this year will not be happening. REUTERS<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39025151\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/mayoral-candidates-zohran-mamdani-brad-104822887.jpg\" alt=\"Zohran Mamdani speaking at a Riders Alliance rally in Flatbush, Brooklyn, advocating for improved mass transit.\" class=\"wp-image-39025151\"  \/>Then-mayoral candidate Mamdani speaks at a Riders Alliance rally in Flatbush, Brooklyn, in support of improving reliability and infrastructure around mass transit in New York City. LP Media<\/p>\n<p>Now, Hizzoner is focusing on bringing back a fare-free bus pilot program, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/new-york-playbook\/2026\/04\/08\/fast-free-and-not-yet-00863106\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Politico reported<\/a> \u2014 in an admission that New Yorkers would have to wait for city-wide no-cost transport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth legislative houses included language within their one-house budget proposals in support of bringing back a free bus pilot program,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is something that we are encouraged by, and it continues to be part of budget negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, he insisted he was still \u201cabsolutely committed to making buses fast and free\u201d \u2014 eventually.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re encouraged by the conversations we\u2019re having with the governor and legislative leaders to take action on that in 2026 as a first step,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stand on the brakes. Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to have conceded he won\u2019t be able to deliver his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7739,57,141,9,24,55,54,56,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-189667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-budget","9":"tag-metro","10":"tag-mta","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-us-news","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189667","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=189667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}