The Socialist Transit Plan That Could Break NYC

There’s no such thing as a free bus.

Kennedy and Natalie Dowzicky | 9.5.2025 10:45 AM

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New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to make every city bus ride free. The democratic socialist assemblyman says the policy would cost about $700 million a year, which sounds like a lot until you compare it to New York state's $254.3 billion budget. Mamdani argues that when stacked against that number, his plan is practically a bargain—one that would improve transit equity and get more New Yorkers onto public transportation.

But here's the catch: Free buses don't exist—someone has to pay for them. Right now, farebox revenue provides the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) with over $5 billion annually. Losing even a fraction of that revenue would open up a budget hole the state can't easily fill. And with COVID relief money drying up, the timing couldn't be worse.

New York City buses already face a serious fare evasion problem, with nearly half of all riders not paying. But that doesn't mean the system should be free altogether. If NYC were to move to a more socialist transit system, the bus service quality would most certainly decline. Wealthier riders will benefit from not having to pay the fare, even though they can afford to. But the low-income New Yorkers Mamdani claims to champion (who already have many of their rides subsidized by the government in other ways) will just be left with a worse-quality bus system. And taxpayers will foot the bill for it all.

Fox News host Kennedy hits the streets for Reason to ask New Yorkers what they think about Mamdani's "free" bus plan and whether a socialist transit policy could actually work in a city already buckling under sky-high taxes.

Photos: Michael Nigro/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; x.com/ZohranKMamdani

Music: "Let's Go Again" by Flint via Artlist; "Mr. Inside Voice" by Southside Aces via Artlist; "Shake the Dance Floor" by Ikoliks via Artlist; "Struttin" by Luc Allieres via Artlist; "Mouse Hunter" by Bunker Buster via Artlist; "Oasis" by THe Wildcardz via Artlist

Producer: Natalie Dowzicky
Video editor: Danielle Thompson
Audio Production: Ian Keyser
Color Correction: Cody Huff
Camera: Jim Epstein
Graphics: Adani Samat

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Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?) 6 hours ago

Wealthier riders will benefit from not having to pay the fare, even though they can afford to.

HA HA like wealthy people ride the bus.

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1. Stupid Government Tricks 6 hours ago
  
  Oh, they will. They won't have any choice. Private cars? Fah! In yer dreams. The roads will be reserved for the buses, for faster service.
  
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2. Rossami 5 hours ago
  
  Wealthier, not wealthy. As in 'the middle class is wealth<ier than the poor' or even 'the poor are wealthier than the homeless'.
  
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3. charliehall 5 hours ago
  
  I have a nice income and take buses all the time. The express buses are nice but the regular transit buses are awful, especially in the Bronx where I live. Unreliable and packed like sardine cans.
  
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4. Rick James 4 hours ago
  
  It's relative. "Wealthier" in this context merely means not impoverished, who already get free or subsidize fares.
  
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5. Outlaw Josey Wales 3 hours ago
  
  Wealthier riders will benefit from not having to pay the fare, even though they can afford to.
  
  Which is an odd comment since these riders are typically the ones more likely to pay anyway. Now, when it's 'free', a service these same riders are paying for in another way and for others too, it is more beneficial to them?
  
  Maybe give out special passes to others and make this group continue to pay. To each according and all that.
  
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Stupid Government Tricks 6 hours ago

Free buses, besides being free, have one enormous advantage: no more bottleneck getting on the bus. As an extreme, imagine a bus with no outside walls, benches back to back running down the middle of the bus, facing outwards. I rode San Francisco cable cars for several years, and they have bench seats like that, plus running boards you can just stand on and bars to hang on to. It is really nice and easy. It stops, people get on and off much faster, it leaves much faster.

The same principle applies to stores. Wouldn't it be nice to get rid of cashiers and checkout lines? You walk in, pick what you want, walk out. What could be more convenient?

Or houses. Ever get off work and dread the hour long commute back home? Wouldn't it be nice if you could just pick the first house you see, walk in, take a nap on the couch? Sure would be more convenient.

Or cars. Come out of a shopping mall, forget where you parked, we've all done that. So just hop in the first car you see. What could be more convenient?

Ever get horny? Wouldn't it be nice if you could just grab the next interesting partner of your choice for a little romp on the sidewalk? Sure would be convenient. Sure would be fun, especially with them providing the cushioning!

The problem with socialism is reality. Sure would be nice to get rid of that. Ever have a bug splat on your windshield and the wipers just smear it around? Wouldn't it be nice if you could just reach through the windshield and wipe it off? Sure would be convenient.

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1. Zeb 6 hours ago
  
  Nice buildup. The first two could have been serious (coming from the right people).
  
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  1. Stupid Government Tricks 6 hours ago
    
    I remember the first time I came across the concept of left anarchism, where "property" is the heresy, not "coercion". You like something? Use it. I could vaguely understand it for housing or cars. But some of the extreme nutters applied it to underwear and toothbrushes. How they expected any kind of property to ever be produced, I do not know. Most likely they'd never thought that far ahead.
    
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    1. Zeb 5 hours ago
      
      Yeah, all those types of philosophy seem to think that manufactured goods and other property just happen. Or that people will still, for some reason, work in the factories even if there is no incentive to do so rather than just using other people's stuff.
      
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2. Roberta 5 hours ago
  
  Yes, that's the factor that doesn't appear in this vid: the savings in time and work from not charging fares. Once you've already decided that buses aren't to be financially self-sustaining, then it's just dickering over the amounts.
  
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  1. Stupid Government Tricks 5 hours ago
    
    And if half their riders already don't pay ...
    
    It would be an interesting comparison. Run half the buses on a popular route free with entry through both doors, the other half religiously enforced, see which complete the route faster and how many fewer buses would be needed.
    
    Be just about impossible to do the comparison well. But as a thought experiment, it's interesting.
    
    Even better would be to alternate days. Public buses as now vs wide-open to all private vehicles -- vans, tour buses, anything, charging any fare they wanted. Which would move more people faster, and which would provide more satisfaction? San Francisco used to have jitneys on Mission Street like that, but the city hated the competition making city transit look so bad, and banned them.
    
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    1. Rossami 4 hours ago
      
      Or you could just watch the natural experiment already in play. A number of cities in the US and abroad moved at least part of their public transit systems to no-fare rules during or immediately after covid.
      
      My initial impression is that it will work in specialized situations such as university towns and tourist traps and will fail for more "normal" cities. But it's premature to make a final determination. It will likely take a decade or two for the balance of consequences to play out.
      
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      1. Outlaw Josey Wales 3 hours ago
        
        Salt Lake City has a tram that runs around the city for free. It is mostly filled with junkies and the homeless.
        
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        Zeb 2 hours ago
        
        I think it was someone here who commented that free busses in their city mostly served to allow the junkies and other crazy homeless people to spread out more into the nicer neighborhoods. GOtta spread the shit around so everyone gets to enjoy it, I guess.
        
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  2. Rick James 4 hours ago
    
    Yes, that's the factor that doesn't appear in this vid: the savings in time and work from not charging fares. Once you've already decided that buses aren't to be financially self-sustaining, then it's just dickering over the amounts.
    
    I essentially noted this below. Pretty much all bus fares are already subsidized, so we're really just deciding how much to subsidize... 80%, 90%, 100%?
    
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Mickey Rat 6 hours ago

It is not broken already?

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1. Zeb 6 hours ago
  
  Millions of people apparently like living there still, so I'd say only damaged at this point. Perhaps to the point of inevitable eventual breakage.
  
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2. charliehall 2 hours ago
  
  No. It has more economic opportunities than any other US city. More cultural and intellectual resources. Less dependent on automobiles. And safer than all but four other large US Cities. Most US cities would LOVE to have what NYC has and a lot of hatred from MAGA is envy and jealousy.
  
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  1. Zeb 2 hours ago
    
    And safer than all but four other large US Cities.
    
    Out of how many? Hard to say if that's a good thing or not without knowing what counts as a "large city".
    
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JFree 5 hours ago

Golly gee. Yet another ignorant article using Reason/libertarian economics. There is in fact very little (possibly zero) marginal cost in operating a subway system without fares v with fares. Subway systems are almost entirely capital expenditures. But there is a very large cost in setting up a fare collection system on that same subway. MEANING - yes it is very likely to be CHEAPER overall (and certainly cheaper per passenger) to run a subway without fares - depending on the costs of diverting mobility from other (non-subway) modes to subway modes as the passengers move to the 'free' mode.

Buses are different - and would be structured differently if there was ANY group of fiscally responsible non-corrupted people who understood either history (see the muni streetcar stuff of the 1890's in Detroit and Cleveland and such) or infrastructure or land or economics. Sadly - all we've got is people corrupted by public sector unions on one side and corrupted ideological cronyist morons on the other.

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1. Roberta 5 hours ago
  
  Sometimes I suspect fares are charged, not for revenue, but to keep out the riff-raff.
  
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  1. JFree 5 hours ago
    
    I suspect they are used to reduce taxes on infrastructure/land in order to increase taxes on the riff-raff.
    
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    1. charliehall 2 hours ago
      
      Convenient public transit increases real estate values.
      
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      1. Zeb 2 hours ago
        
        Then I definitely don't want it near me.
        
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2. JFree 5 hours ago
  
  The correct way of structuring a muni bus system is similar to the way airports are structured. Where the muni simply sets up the capital infrastructure - the land-based stuff - and charges the OPERATORS for stuff like loading/unloading slots, takeoff runways, etc (LAND rent). Where the PRIVATE OPERATORS do whatever they want re passenger fares.
  
  For cities that would mean getting rid of most city-run buses, route decisions, and certainly pricing or fare collection. It would mean focusing instead on bus stops/depots, arrival/departure boards, and moving those bus stops away from arterials, on-street parking, etc, so that non-bus traffic (all modes) and bus traffic don't interfere with each other. Keep the land. Get rid of the operations.
  
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  1. charliehall 4 hours ago
    
    Sorry but airports are not a model as there are constraints on gates and landing slots.
    
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    1. JFree 2 hours ago
      
      Airports are exactly the appropriate model. Buses stop at bus stops - at known times. They go to locations somewhere else - where they then stop and discharge passengers at a stop. Eliminating bus stops on an arterial also means you can eliminate parking on that arterial - which helps non-bus traffic. Eliminating public/govt routes eliminates the cross-town bus stopping every fucking block on the way - in much the same way as catching a cross-country flight doesn't require stops at every fucking airport on the way. And focusing on bus stops/depots that remain - means that the private sector can buy buses and figure out routes and pay drivers and run operations exactly like airlines do - and leverage the passenger volume that the muni can publicize as emanating from their stops.
      
      Keep the land. Get rid of the operations.
      
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3. Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?) 5 hours ago
  
  Or maybe the government shouldn’t be running subways and buses.
  
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  1. JFree 5 hours ago
    
    It's almost like you can't read. Or are an ideological parrot.
    
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    1. Stupid Government Tricks 5 hours ago
      
      It IS as if you are an ideological incompetent nut job.
      
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  2. charliehall 4 hours ago
    
    Most cities did try to let private operators run their buses, streetcars, and subways. They failed.
    
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4. Rossami 5 hours ago
  
  If the marginal cost of operating a subway is so small (maybe even zero you claim), why is the annual operating budget for New York's subway operations still measured in billions? Are you claiming that they're still making initial capital expenditures? Or are you claiming that all those billions are spent on just fare collection?
  
  Contrary to your claim, subways and other railroads all have substantial marginal costs. Yes, you could reduce some of that marginal cost by foregoing the fare collection system but it won't come anywhere close to zero. And for those savings, you'll get all the adverse social and structural consequences already discussed in the article above.
  
  For evidence just look at any of the jurisdictions that have tried "free" public transportation. It works in a few specialized situations - usually university towns and tourist destinations - places where the economics of subsidization actually work. More "normal" jurisdictions that have tried it have generally either reversed course or watched public transportation decline over the course of a decade or two.
  
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  1. charliehall 5 hours ago
    
    Economics 101 teaches the difference between marginal cost and average cost.
    
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    1. Rossami 4 hours ago
      
      Yes, it does. And that has nothing to do with my reply to JFree's claim. Go away and let the grownups talk.
      
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      1. charliehall 4 hours ago
        
        I am a grownup. My comment actually supports yours.
        
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        Rossami 4 hours ago
        
        Then my apologies for my snark and I misread your comment.
        
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        charliehall 2 hours ago
        
        Apology accepted! Thank you!!!!
        
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  2. JFree 3 hours ago
    
    If the marginal cost of operating a subway is so small (maybe even zero you claim), why is the annual operating budget for New York's subway operations still measured in billions? Are you claiming that they're still making initial capital expenditures
    
    Govt accounting tends towards fraudulence because it NEVER involves hedge financing (where revenues are or can be used to create a sinking fund). It only involves speculative financing (debt is always rolled over - therefore revenues merely fund operations or interest payments) or worse (Ponzi). Since neither political party believes in hedge financing and only believes in speculative or Ponzi financing, neither holds govt accountable and elections in the US are, at a local level, a de facto one-party system with political monopolies in different Ponzi-based jurisdictions. And yes - a ton of current spending is based on operations to collect/enforce fares.
    
    For evidence just look at any of the jurisdictions that have tried "free" public transportation.
    
    See above re one-party politics in the US as to why very little works here. Though there are some examples - Boston, Albuquerque, Fort Collins, Kansas City, Alexandria, etc which may still be in effect if there is ANY viable local two-party (or non-partisan) system there. For places where it works in large part or partially, see Estonia, Luxemburg, Malta, Kharkiv, Belgrade, Geneva, Iceland, Jakarta, New Delhi, etc. And in fact it is tourists and non-residents who tend to gum up the works in those locations re anything fare-free because people everywhere WANT to soak tourists for fares which means they create/continue fare-based and other operations based expenses/structures.
    
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5. Stupid Government Tricks 5 hours ago
  
  Did you know the original subways were private and profitable? It was only after the city took them over and refused to raise prices that the thing went to pieces. Then came the unionization and it went to hell.
  
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  1. charliehall 4 hours ago
    
    That is a lie. Some -- not all -- of the original subways were profitable for a few years but they all had been unprofitable for at least two and a half decades by the time they were taken over. The contract with the private operators was that the operators had a fixed price for fares that could not be changed. Maybe not a good business decision; the robber barons responsible (No less a figure than J. P. Morgan was behind Interborough Rapid Transit; August Belmont, Jr. was his front man) probably figured that they could use their political power to force politicians to yield. The Tammany Hall hacks in charge of NYC refused. And when La Guardia put them out of power, he refused, too.
    
    And it isn't clear that the city even had the power to ALLOW a change to the five cent fare. This went all the way to the Supreme Court:
    
    https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16062185718546245106&q=Gilchrist+v.+Interborough+Rapid+Transit+Co.&hl=en&as_sdt=2006
    
    Interborough Rapid Transit had some pretty high powered attorneys working for them. Charles E. Hughes was a former SC Justice who would soon become Chief Justice, and Charles E. Hughes, Jr. was his son who would even sooner become Solicitor General of the United States.
    
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    1. charliehall 4 hours ago
      
      The opinion gives some details on the profitability of Interborough Rapid Transit. It is a bit more complicated than I implied but by 1940 all the private lines were losing money.
      
      I suspect rather strongly that a lot of insiders profited immensely from speculation on the land in North Manhattan, The Bronx, and Queens that became potentially developable by the subway expansion beyond the already built up areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Some graduate student should go back through all the land records and examine this. If I were younger I would be tempted to do so.
      
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    2. JFree 3 hours ago
      
      Subways are a bit different than streetcars or interurbans but the basic dynamics at that same time were similar. It's odd that there are no real biographies written about the mayoralties of Tom Johnson (Cleveland), Hazen Pingree (Detroit), or Sam Jones (Toledo) - though their struggles with privatized streetcars in a completely privately owned system. In Johnsons case he also owned those streetcar systems before he became mayor - and became rich patenting the glass-enclosed fare box - and all three were R. Really odd considering those three are considered the second, third, and fifth best mayors in US history.
      
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      1. charliehall 2 hours ago
        
        The number one best mayor ever in the US was DeWitt Clinton and nobody else is even in the same league, and it is because of public transportation -- the Erie Canal.
        
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        JFree 2 hours ago
        
        He did not construct the Erie Canal as Mayor of NYC but as Governor of NY. What he did as NYC Mayor was establish the grid system for streets - long before the city was populated. Which yes is public transport though it alone probably doesn't put him as best all-time American mayor since that grid was neither unique nor original.
        
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      2. JFree 2 hours ago
        
        In the case of Cleveland, the reason privatized streetcar systems didn't work is because the city would grant a monopoly over one route. When the private streetcar would jack up prices to violate the terms of that monopoly grant, the city would grant a different monopoly over a slightly different route in hopes of fostering some level of competition. Those two different private companies would then merge and the city/residents are right back to the beginning - subject to whatever fares can be extracted from a now-privatized monopoly over land (the street car rails).
        
        The only way out, perceived by all three of those mayors, was to not allow privatization of the land involved. What they couldn't quite figure out then was how to separate the operations from the land. But that can be done now.
        
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mad.casual 5 hours ago

I think Kennedy's 'I woke up late on Father's Day' look is doing her even fewer favors than it does for me and not just because I didn't broadcast mine to the internet.

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Rick James 5 hours ago

I'm sorry guys, but this is not the plan that will break New York. Free housing for illegal immigrants will break New York long before a free bus ride on the crack express will.

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1. charliehall 5 hours ago
  
  Sorry, but it didn't. And the free bus service will cost a lot more. And I don't know that I have ever seen anyone high on crack on a bus here.
  
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  1. Rick James 4 hours ago
    
    Wow, where I live, they're literally drug dens.
    
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    1. charliehall 4 hours ago
      
      Never seen a drug deal on a NYC transit bus. And I know what a drug infested area looks like; I lived in one in Baltimore. Fix your own city's problems rather than try to mess up NYC.
      
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      1. Rick James 4 hours ago
        
        NYC is messing itself up, thank you very much. Vote strategically and reluctantly!
        
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        charliehall 4 hours ago
        
        NYC is doing great today. Much better than most other US cities.
        
        Now Mamdani does want to mess things up. And his three opponents also are problematic. However, most of what Mamdani wants requires approval of the State government and Hochul has made it clear that she isn't planning on allowing them. The only reason that Mamdani might be a success as Mayor is that Hochul might prevent him from carrying out his program.
        
        Of course if Hochul is replaced by a MAGA fool, all bets are off.
        
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  2. Rick James 4 hours ago
    
    And the free bus service will cost a lot more.
    
    Oh, and getting back to the subject at hand, nearly every city in America that has a transit system runs them at a loss, and in many cases, a significant loss. In addition to that, many cities, especially blue cities heavily subsidize fares. There's a reasonable chance that when you watch someone swipe their transit card, that came out of the city budgets. So much of the fares are essentially cutting off the top of the blanket and sewing to the bottom to make it longer.
    
    Bottom line, free healthcare and housing is WAY more expensive than a bus ride.
    
    On a side note, what's interesting to me is that Mamdani's plan subsidizes the wealthy(er) transit riders. I assume that NYC is just like any deep blue city, and there are mountains of programs and methods to get subsidized fares, meaning the only people who will benefit are the people that can afford their fares. And again, given that nearly every transit system in the US operates at a loss, everything is already subsidized.
    
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    1. charliehall 2 hours ago
      
      The per ride subsidy in the NY area is much larger for the commuter trains that primarily serve the suburbs. And that is by design.
      
      In 1961 a Democrat was elected County Executive of Nassau County, which had previously been a corrupt one party state every bit as bad as Mexico at that time. Gov. Nelson Rockefeller realized that if the Republican dictatorship of Nassau and Suffolk Counties ended, the viability of the Republican Party in the state was in grave danger. Rockefeller knew he had to find an issue that would reward Republicans, and himself.
      
      And he found one: the Long Island Rail Road. It was owned by the monstrously corrupt and inefficent Pennsylvania Railroad, which at one point was the largest corporation in the world and owned the Pennsylvania legislature. It was legendary for unreliable service and old broken down trains. In his 1962 re election campaign, Rockefeller pledged to fix the LIRR. And he did -- by forming and expanding the MTA.
      
      And the rest is history.
      
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Gaear Grimsrud 4 hours ago

Have mercy. Been waitin for the Mamdani bus all day. I've got my brown paper bag and my take home pay.

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charliehall 4 hours ago

"serious fare evasion problem"

It is indeed a problem but not as great as is claimed. I live near a major subway to bus transfer station. Indeed about half the bus passengers do not pay. But most of them are either transfers from the subway, whose transfers are mostly free, or students with transit passes, who also ride for free. It is difficult to estimate the magnitude of the problem.

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11ed0d2 4 hours ago

Why is the cost of running the NYC bus being compared to New York state's budget? The money would come from the city's budget, not the state's.

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Uncle Jay 41 minutes ago

"The Socialist Transit Plan That Could Break NYC."

The headline should read, "The Socialist Transit Plan That Will Break NYC."

You're welcome.

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The Socialist Transit Plan That Could Break NYC

There’s no such thing as a free bus.

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