Wenn Busfahrten kostenlos sind, passiert etwas Überraschendes

NYT

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.

Literally none of that is surprising, nor is it ideological or extreme. You could write a similar piece on why highways should be free, except with buses, the benefits are tangible and easier to envision (buses not slowed down by dozens of people paying fares, no fare evasion administrative burden on courts, etc).

We’re really surprised that when something costs zero, more people use it?
Transit agencies don’t run on farebox profits. They run on subsidies and political will. You drop fares, ridership bumps. Cool. But frequency, safety perception, and reliability still decide whether people ditch their cars. boring infrastructure math.
And the bigger dodge? Free fares make for great headlines. They don’t solve deferred maintenance or operator burnout. They don’t rebuild rail lines or modernize dispatch systems. it’s service quality that changes behavior, not just price tags.
So we get celebratory thinkpieces about “surprising results” while the real fight stable funding streams and zoning reform stays offstage. because ribbon-cutting optics beat long-term capital planning every time.

I’m only for this type of thing if they enforce standards for ridership.

We did this down here a while ago and homeless are treating them as public urinals and mobile motels.

It causes them to reek.

Hopefully ny won’t have this problem.

Buses are free in our small city and it’s fantastic! We applaud NYC for moving in that direction

Shouldn’t be surprising.

Almost every transit authority spends vastly and I mean VASTLY more money attempting to police fare evasion than they collect in fares.

The fiscally responsible thing to do is make it free to use.

My city has free busses and it’s massively improved the atmosphere in downtown. People can get from one end of the city to the other without paying 2.50$/day for a day pass. College students, parents, whoever, all have equal access to transportation

Anyone who doubts the benefits of free buses as clearly never lived in a college town with free buses. Because, what happens when residents can basically go anywhere in town?

People without cars go to commercial areas way more frequently.

People with cars don’t take up parking spots there, and people who do have cars can park more conveniently.

The city can raise parking rates in choice areas without impacting daily commuters, turning that into (deservedly) a luxury thing.

The streets are less crowded, so more pedestrians and cyclists.

Buses become way more heavily utilized, so more buses are run at max capacity.

Buses run way faster, since there’s no need to count change or use finicky fare readers.

This whole argument is divorced from reality. The bus costs the same to run empty as to run full, so the only “cost” of free busing is the number of people *who would’ve paid when buses weren’t free*. And, frankly, that cost is not very high, particularly when you factor in that you’re also reducing costs in enforcement and fare readers.

They’re also saving a bunch of time and money *not* having to collect and process payments.

Free buses are good. Better still is a bus system that’s so frequent, fast and reliable that people don’t mind paying for it. There’s a real worry that making them free will lower investment in improving it, especially if you end up with a bigger class divide in trains vs busses.

We always had to pay, but as a teen and student I had access to cheap bus passes. It was crucial for getting around for education and work, which obviously has knock on benefits besides reduction in traffic or the costs of enforcement etc. I knew people who didn’t have that access to be able to get buses places and it fucked them over.

Not everyone has parents who can drive them, or provide a car, or indeed pay for their bus usage. Free bus usage could make a very real difference to the most vulnerable young people struggling to get started in life.

Here in the rural red state of Montana, in the only blue town, Missoula, busses have been free for about a decade. Businesses have been helping cover the operating costs, because if people can get to their stores, they make far more money. I know, shocker.

It’s one of many reasons that despite my frustrations with how red Montana has become, I still love this town very much.

Most of the people commenting rarely or have never ridden a NYC MTA bus. I, for one, would never ride a MTA bus unless I have no choice. I’ve spoken with several other fellow NYers and they say they would never ride an MTA bus. A lot of them refuse to take a subway.

The state of these mass transit systems is awful. It’s dirty from the homeless people. There are constantly empty train cars because there’s 1 homeless person that smells so bad that nobody can stand to be on the train. I’ve seen homeless people pee on the train in all different ways.. laying across the seats and just urinating on themselves, whipping their genitalia out in the open and just peeing, and the stealth one of just standing up and peeing down their own pants. I never ride the bus anymore, but I can only imagine it is in a similar state because it was the same way when I did ride it years ago.

This is not to mention the risks of riding MTA buses and trains. It just isn’t safe and people are constantly getting attacked. Despite the extra manpower they have, I still constantly see stories of attacks. It seems that they are more interested in fare enforcement than they are in protecting people.

And it’s not just homeless people. There are stories of other attacks as well for various reasons. One of the most common ones I see on social media and in the news are anti-Asian, especially since the pandemic. The focus on anti-AAPI hate has completely disappeared, but the acts of violence are still there.

I have no problem with making fares free, but they really need to make public transportation safer. I’m even okay with them making fares free for students, seniors, and low income and making people like me continue to pay fares. I just want to not have to wonder if I’m going to be the next local story as a victim of an attack.

Here in Australia, they made all public transport across the state (and Australian states are big) 50c. The reason for the charge is so that they can track and monitor people flows.

Was such a hit, they made it permanent.

Free is not going to make up for stupidly slow and bad service. Rather keep the ticket and improve the quality of the service. Have fewer cars and dedicated bus lanes.

When I was a college student, having students bus fares waived meant a lot in saving money on gas and vehicle maintenance to get small groceries and complete chores

Don’t believe the driver when he tells you that the rides are free!

Tucson removed bus fares for covid and it was so successful that they were not implemented again. It was about four hours daily to take the bus to the university from the edge of the city, but that was a huge help. I no longer use public transit (night shift), but I am glad to pay a few cents for it to be free to everyone.

I live in a Republican leaning county in Ohio and we have free buses. Anywhere can do it. This country needs to get over throwing a fit when others get a free service they don’t use.

Tucson made buses free during Covid and kept it that way since. When i travel for visits it saves me a lot instead of having to uber 24/7. When i didn’t have a car the first 2 years there it was a true blessing.

I lived in Seattle during the free bus experiment. The buses understandably became magnets for the homeless and mentally unwell. Especially during poor weather. Not only did it make the buses and riders less hygienic, but it also significantly slowed transit times down as way more people would get on and off at various stops. Free buses mean you might take it for a 10 block trip you might otherwise walk. 

I stopped taking public transit as a result. 

You guys don’t understand the people in NYC will abuse this, bringing it to an instant halt. They are animals.