No. of Recommendations: 3
For a fairly well-written discussion of why this is a bad idea, here's a piece from
Slate (generally a left-leaning site and written from the perspective of someone who is very supportive of transit):
slate.com - Zohran mamdani free buses bad transit plans goodAnd here's a very nice explanation of why even if you
had nine figures of taxpayer money to shift into transit, you wouldn't spend it on making it
free rather than making it
better:
But is it [zero-fare] the best way to spent $600 million–plus in taxpayer dollars, every year, ad infinitum?
It’s hard to see how that could be the case, particularly given the myriad opportunities to upgrade MTA’s bus service, which is the slowest in the country and not getting faster.
Low-income passengers themselves often say they would prefer speedier and more reliable transit service than one that’s free of charge. Basic math can explain why: If a bus rider makes $20 per hour and their commute takes an average of 40 minutes, reducing their average trip to 25 minutes would save them half an hour per day, worth the equivalent of $10—far more than the price of a round-trip ride.
“Bus passengers want reliability and reduced trip times,” said Eric Goldwyn, program director of the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management. “We can do that with bus lanes, signal prioritization, all-door boarding, and bus stop consolidation.” The MTA could also simply run more buses, reducing wait times that frequently exceed 15 minutes on many lines. All of these moves would cost a fraction as much as going fare-free. New York City’s subway, which moves more than twice as many people as its buses, offers an additional to-do list. The Effective Transit Alliance, a nonprofit, claims that $350 million per year would ensure six-minute service across every subway line, citywide, from dawn to dusk. 