this video<\/a>. That message helped propel him to a resounding win in the Democratic primary with a campaign focused on affordability, and could come up again Thursday night when the mayoral candidates debate ahead of next month\u2019s general election.<\/p>\nOther cities have made buses free, but their track record is mixed. And even transit advocates \u2014 people who definitely love buses, and want more people to ride them \u2014 are divided on whether making buses free is the best way to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want people to have the right to the city. We want people to experience that mobility and that ability to get around,\u201d said Charles Komanoff, an economist and longtime transit advocate in New York who supports Mamdani\u2019s plan for free buses.<\/p>\n
That plan would help make those buses faster too, Komanoff says, because passengers could board through all doors at once instead of waiting in line to pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you make the buses faster, that also incentivizes people to ride the bus who might otherwise now be taking an Uber, taking somebody\u2019s car, you know, taking a taxi or whatever,\u201d Komanoff said in an interview.<\/p>\n
![\"Mayoral](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760633245_764_\")
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani steps off the M57 bus on his way to a press conference Oct. 8 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images)<\/p>\n
But the plan has skeptics, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the first thing I would do,\u201d said Eric Goldwyn, the program director at the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University.<\/p>\n
Goldwyn\u2019s research suggests that what people really want are buses that come more often and are more reliable, and that cost is not the top issue. So, if you really want to get people out of taxis and cars, Goldwyn argues, it\u2019s better to spend money on more frequent service or infrastructure improvements like dedicated lanes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way you get people on the bus is by making it faster, more frequent and more reliable,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where I would focus my energy before I would focus on free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buses are not cheap to operate. The fare box is just one source of funds, and it\u2019s rarely the biggest.<\/p>\n
Some cities have found other ways to pay. Boston used federal money to make three popular bus lines free, while Alexandria, Va., and Olympia, Wash., stopped collecting fares altogether.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Kansas City. The regional transit authority eliminated fares in 2020, but it did not go exactly as local leaders had hoped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just never found a sustainable funding source to replace the $10 million a year out of the fare box,\u201d said Eric Bunch, a city councilman in Kansas City, Mo., and a member of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority.<\/p>\n
Bunch says ridership stayed stable at a time when most cities saw steep drops. There were also concerns about security, with bus drivers complaining that they encountered more homeless people on board, though it\u2019s not clear if other riders were in any added danger.<\/p>\n
But the biggest issue, Bunch says, was money. \u201cThe problem in most American cities is that we don\u2019t adequately fund public transit. That\u2019s the bottom line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kansas City\u2019s transit authority plans to begin charging fares again in the spring. This may be a cautionary tale for New York, which has by far the largest bus ridership of any U.S. city.<\/p>\n
But mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is undaunted. Last week, he rode one of the city\u2019s slowest lines to a press conference to make his point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can\u2019t just be making it free alone. You have to be making it free while actually making the infrastructure for it to be fast,\u201d he told reporters aboard an M57 bus in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s something City Hall could prioritize. It\u2019s just that New York City hasn\u2019t had a mayor who cares much about buses, Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
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