I’ve been to NYC 3 times now, and all 3 times people didn’t pay for the buses, they just got on. The bus driver didn’t even look behind themselves. Making the buses free is just a formality.

The buses I used were always PACKED and in all honesty if every single person paid, the bus would sit there for like 3-4 minutes at the busy stops.

Imagine how many buses congestion pricing could fund and how nice it would be to walk through the city with free buses to take you where you wanted to go. How many shops or restaurants you might go to. Maybe the library and a park. Suddenly there's more pedestrian accessible business. Even as a thought experiment it seems like it's worth the risk

Someone? How about the millions of fucking people that live there. That's a crazy thought.

New York already has more public debt per resident than any other large city in the USA

Got a source on that? Given that it's by far the most populous one, with more than twice the population of LA (when counting within municipal limits only), and as you say has relatively high taxes, the total public spending would have to dwarf that of most STATES for your claim to be anywhere near true.

New York also already has high taxes

Which is offset by some of it going towards middle- and working class people having to pay much less for some vital goods and services than in places with a more regressive tax system where the bulk of the revenue comes from things like sales tax and hardly any is spent where it's most needed.

and a shrinking population

So you're saying that FEWER people using mass transit fare-free costs MORE? 🤔

So yeah, I'm worried about where the money will come from.

Other than the obvious answer that you reject out of hand for no reason in the next sentence, here's one

Cops. An absolutely ludicrous $5.5b/y is spent on the paramilitary group/mercenaries for the rich and powerful, terrorists for everyone else known as the NYPD.

The people of New York aren't only paying a premium for the dubious honor of having one of the most oppressive and racist police forces in the world AT HOME. The NYPD also conducts "counterterrorism", training and other operations in Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, the fascist apartheid regime known as Israel, Qatar, Australia, and several European countries.

Call me crazy, but if I lived in New York, I would rather my tax dollars go to poor people being able to afford going to work and school than to exporting state terrorism and helping despotic governments oppress and suppress disfavored ethnic and religious groups.

Now that a progressive beat a centrist in a high-profile contest where the party establishment tried and failed to stop him, the talking points identical to republican propaganda come out.

Yeah, someone has to pay for it all - the WEALTHY people and corporations who benefit by the infrastructure. They get all the rewards of the system, but they expect someone else to pay to maintain it, too?

If they need to pay half of their fortunes to keep the other half, they'll be just fine. If they refuse to cooperate, we'll just take it all.

The wealthy have a choice for the next stage:

Trickle Up Economics, in which they'll still end up with the money in the end, but it greases the economy along the way,

OR

Robin Hood Economics - Take from the rich and give to the poor. The problem with this one is that it will be VERY uncomfortable for the wealthy.

I'm good with either one.

"shrinking population"

Okay so you didn't even do a iota of fact checking here. It's growing. And it always has.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/23083/new-york-city/population

as a non-american looking from outside, if NYC already taxed the rich for a lot, then to me the next sensible logical thing for the mayor to do is manage the apparently already lots of money to better use and making his platform come true. to me whatever NYC is doing that sounds like mismanagement of tax funds

You’re already paying for it, you get that, right? The thing is that EVERYBODY needs to be paying and the ones that have the most bend over backwards so that they can give nothing back. The fact that you say what you’re saying while New York is host to some of the most wealth in the entire world is a disturbing illustration of the problems and solutions at hand.

That's where actually taxing the rich comes to play.