Free buses? Really? Of all the promises that Zohran Mamdani made during his New York City mayoral campaign, that one struck some skeptics as the most frivolous leftist fantasy. Unlike housing, groceries and child care, which weigh heavily on New Yorkers’ finances, a bus ride is just a few bucks. Is it really worth the huge effort to spare people that tiny outlay?

It is. Far beyond just saving riders money, free buses deliver a cascade of benefits, from easing traffic to promoting public safety. Just look at Boston; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; Kansas City, Mo.; and even New York itself, all of which have tried it to excellent effect. And it doesn’t have to be costly — in fact, it can come out just about even.

As a lawyer, I feel most strongly about the least-discussed benefit: Eliminating bus fares can clear junk cases out of our court system, lowering the crushing caseloads that prevent our judges, prosecutors and public defenders from focusing their attention where it’s most needed.

I was a public defender, and in one of my first cases I was asked to represent a woman who was not a robber or a drug dealer — she was someone who had failed to pay the fare on public transit. Precious resources had 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.

Unless a person has spent real time in the bowels of a courthouse, it’s hard to imagine how many of the matters clogging criminal courts across the country originate from a lack of transit. Some of those cases result in fines; many result in defendants being ordered to attend community service or further court dates. But if people can’t afford the fare to get to those appointments and can’t get a ride, their only options — jump a turnstile or flout a judge’s order — expose them to re-arrest. Then they may face jail time, which adds significant pressure to our already overcrowded facilities. Is this really what we want the courts spending time on?

Free buses can unclog our streets, too. In Boston, eliminating the need for riders to pay fares or punch tickets cut boarding time by as much as 23 percent, which made everyone’s trip faster. Better, cheaper, faster bus rides give automobile owners an incentive to leave their cars at home, which makes the journey faster still — for those onboard as well as those who still prefer to drive.

How much should a government be willing to pay to achieve those outcomes? How about nothing? When Washington State’s public transit systems stopped charging riders, in many municipalities the state came out more or less even — because the money lost on fares was balanced out by the enormous savings that ensued.

Fare evasion was one of the factors that prompted Mayor Eric Adams to flood New York City public transit with police officers. New Yorkers went from shelling out $4 million for overtime in 2022 to $155 million in 2024. What did it get them? In September 2024, officers drew their guns to shoot a fare beater who was wielding a knife and two innocent bystanders ended up with bullet wounds, the kind of accident that’s all but inevitable in such a crowded setting.

New York City tried a free bus pilot program in 2023 and 2024 and, as predicted, ridership increased — by 30 percent on weekdays and 38 percent on weekends, striking figures that could make a meaningful dent in New York’s chronic traffic problem (and, by extension, air and noise pollution). Something else happened that was surprising: Assaults on bus operators dropped 39 percent. Call it the opposite of the Adams strategy: Lowering barriers to access made for fewer tense law enforcement encounters, fewer acts of desperation and a safer city overall.

If free buses strike you as wasteful, you’re not alone. Plenty of the beneficiaries would be people who can afford to pay. Does it make sense to give them a freebie? Yes, if it improves the life of the city, just as free parks, libraries and public schools do. Don’t think of it as a giveaway to the undeserving. Think of it as a gift to all New Yorkers in every community. We deserve it.

@vk6flab@asdfasdfasdf archive.ph/gBRoW

And all the bus drivers not assaulted while not being the bus fare bouncer

unless I have to pay for parking, which is exceedingly rare

I guess that one of the hidden subsidies. Mandatory parking cost (of land) gets factored in to cost of business and socialised over customers that way. Hard for people to visualise that though as the true cost of that land is probably the opportunity cost, since the market price is probably skewed by the regulations.

What if you drink alcohol or use recreational drugs? You can still take the bus and won’t endanger anyone (unless you’re totally off your head). Drink/drugged drivers are a danger to everyone.

In my city the bus to downtown (CBD or "town") is $8.69 one way. For my family of 5 we're $43 bucks to get into town. One way. It's $86 for the round trip.

It's cheaper to drive and pay $30 for pre booked parking for a family outing then it is to go via public transport.

Even if we go off peak where the prices by approx half.

Cost me $7 round trip to take the light rail to the other CBD (4km away). For the whole family it's still cheaper to find street parking then to pub transport it.

But when it's one person it makes no sense to commute to work, $30 a day parking plus tolls (easily $50 to go to work) when I can do it for $17 a day.

Still way too much. If I didn't wfh as much as I do it would be a significant cost

This is a NYC initiative, this is a lot of words to say you've never lived there. Fare is not $20 nor $5, and the vast majority of NYCers do not have a car. Owning a car in NYC is also wickedly expensive, both in expected and unexpected costs.

It appears the original OP (not me; I just cross-posted) quoted the first, second, and last paragraphs. The archive link already posted (https://archive.ph/gBRoW) appears to include the whole article, though.

There's an archive link in the post body that includes the full article.

Here's a gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/opinion/free-bus-rides-mamdani.html?unlocked_article_code=1.MlA.InK3.LhCVnpVIgoAo

I see a lot of places with great mass transit only use token fares, in Georgia its like 5 cents, in China for many cities its 15-30.

Essentially free, but you maintain ticket infrastructure so you can track which routes need to be expanded and where you can run fewer buses.

I wonder if "the same money" just means the fares themselves? Because there are all the other major costs mentioned in the article: police enforcement, legal costs to prosecute, and further junk prosecutions over fare jumpers (and others) missing court dates because they can't afford to get to them. There's also the reduction in driver assaults by people desperate to get on the bus without fare, which surely carry a cost to the city (in addition to how terrible it is). And, we can probably assume, there's a cost savings in maintenance of payment systems and equipment on every bus. When you factor all that money in, plus as you say, the benefits as a social policy, I wonder how free fares really stack up against routes and frequencies—but in a perfectly world we'd want both!

It probably depends, but in my city (Tampa FL US) the frequency is by far the biggest problem. We live within easy walking distance of 5 different bus routes (on purpose) including one that goes directly to the uni my penultimate kid went to, the community college my youngest attends, my job, both jobs my youngest works, and my husband's previous office. Without transfers. One bus. So basically we are the best served family in the whole city, right?

Two of those routes run hourly. The other three only every half hour. So it's useless for work & school, if you have to be there on time.

This is a degradation of service, too - when I went to the same university, I lived by a bus route that went directly there, and ran every 15 minutes. Buses need to run every 15 minutes to be useful, even if the routes are good.

Paying is not so bad now with the tap to pay but free would streamline the whole affair for sure.

You should also take into account that expenses are reduced because the need for payment infrastructure and processing disappears.

This is a great hobby 😊

If he starts to show signs of dementia you need to show him how to share his location with you guys by default. This hobby sounds like it could make something stressful even more stressful if not prepared.

Thankfully, this hobby would help stave off dimentia if onsetting, as it is highly cognitive and forces an amount of exercise 🙂

I love this because it will mean some more young voters who want public transport to be good. Hopefully.

Even if I think overall investment from Vic Labor still prioritises roads over sensible public transport investment.

There are a number of low-hanging-fruit projects they've cancelled, and taking decades to build much needed improvements.

Small tram extensions for interconnections, priority signalling and lanes for trams and busses, etc. 10 minute minimum all day frequencies on trains are already possible.

While I think Skyrail is very lovely and an improvement, it's not actually brought any new connections or frequency improvements, and is as much for cars as it is for public transport users.

Meanwhile we're spending billions upon billions upon billions on new roads. We don't need any new roads.

The only solution to traffic is viable alternatives to driving.

without the riff raff

Wtf, this reads truly unempathetic and isn't realistic about the challenges of homelessness and severely poor mental health

Putting words in your mouth, shall we introduce W 50¢ fare for the street so you don't need to be confronted by the failure of our society?

The "riff raff" are also members of the community that require access to transportation.