State lawmakers have hit the gas on $12 million in upgrades for express and local routes ahead of the expected June start of congestion pricing.
The state budget passed on Saturday includes $12.3 million for improved bus service across 21 bus routes, including increased peak service on express buses from the boroughs into Manhattan’s core.
However, the new investment falls well short of the $45 million that state Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris and Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, both representing Queens, had pushed for to make bus service more frequent and reliable ahead of congestion pricing. The proposal sought to follow London, Stockholm and Singapore in enhancing mass transit options in anticipation of congestion fees.
At the same time, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s experiment with five, payment-free bus routes in each borough will soon come to an end; the new state budget did not reauthorize the pilot program and rejected an expansion sought by Gianaris and Mamdani.
Last year’s state budget greenlit the pilot at a cost of $15 million for five bus lines — the M116 in Manhattan, the B60 in Brooklyn, the Q4 in Queens, the Bx18 in the Bronx and the S46/96 in Staten Island — but the effort failed to gain political traction and was publicly spurned by MTA leadership as not worth the investment.
Gianaris and Mamdani, who were responsible for the initial fare-free pilot, had pushed to expand the program from the initial five to 15 routes with another $45 million in funding. But MTA chair and chief executive Janno Lieber has been frank about his skepticism.
“I am concerned that free buses send the wrong message at a moment that we’re trying to push back on fare evasion,” Lieber told Crain’s Editor-in-Chief Cory Schouten during a Power Breakfast event last week. The MTA has not yet released data and analysis from the pilot, but Lieber said the results so far suggest that the fare-free trips are “not necessarily benefitting the lowest income folks” and that he would rather “keep pressing forward on targeted affordability.”
Transit officials expect to wind down the fare-free pilot in late summer, ahead of the new school year, the MTA told Crain’s.
Other U.S. cities have tried their hand at fare-free buses with positive results on sped-up travel times. In 2022, Boston made three of its bus routes free — an expansion from an initial pilot program — and Kansas City converted its entire mass transit system to payment free in 2020.
“I’m saddened we were not able to extend or expand the successful fare-free bus pilot,” Mamdani said in a statement, adding that funds to expand the pilot “could be found in the couch cushions of NY’s budget.” “This was a crucial, universal program that put money back into the pockets of working-class New Yorkers, giving them economic relief and peace of mind.”
Caroline Spivack , 2024-04-23 19:31:01
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