The free-bus pilot program that made one line in each New York City borough free to use for up to a year is not expected to be renewed, MTA officials indicated Monday.
The program, which began last year, is set to expire at the end of August. MTA officials said Monday that the program did not drive sufficient new ridership to justify the estimated $15 million cost, and that affordability should be sought via system-wide efforts like the city’s half-off “fair fares” program.
“There was a lot of fanfare on this pilot,” acting NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said at a meeting of the MTA’s board. “Our hope was that this pilot would get people out of their cars and onto buses on these routes.
“We did not see anything that aligned with that initial intent,” said Crichlow.
Gov. Hochul had given the MTA $15 million in funding last year to run five lines free for one year. The MTA’s chosen routes — the B60, Bx18, Q4, S46 and M116 —have been fare-free since late September.
John Kaufman, MTA’s chief of strategic initiatives, said Monday that surveys conducted among riders on the five lines showed that ridership has gone up on the free routes by about a third.
Only 12% of riders surveyed said they were new to the bus route, Kaufman reported.
“Everyone else we were speaking to on those buses had already been taking the route,” he said.
“They increased the frequency of their riding on the route, but it wasn’t a surge of new people to the transit system,” he said.
Riders that were new to the free routes largely told the MTA they were running errands or engaging in leisure activities. Those who were already regulars on a given route were more likely to be going to work or to school, Kaufman said.
But for New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D – Queens), one of the principal architects of the state law that called for the pilot program, those facts made the program a success.
“This pilot achieved exactly what we hoped it would — to bring economic relief to working class New Yorkers,” Mamdani told the Daily News
The income profiles of the free-bus riders was largely consistent between those new to the routes and those who had been regular riders before the pilot.
Roughly 44% of new riders and 46% of regulars reported making less than $28,000 a year. Only 14% of that group said they were enrolled in the city’s Fair Fares program, which offers half-off transit fares for those making less than the federal poverty line.
Mamdani said the goal of the pilot had been to ease economic pressures on working class New Yorkers. Kaufman, the MTA official, argued the effect was limited to only five routes.
Kaufman suggested the MTA consider other approaches if it was trying to help low-income New Yorkers use the transit system.
“If your goal is to help with affordability, I think there’s smarter ways to do this,” Kaufman told the MTA’s board.
With the free-bus program, “you’re only helping people on [one] route,” Kaufman continued. “Broad affordability helps wherever your going.”
Mamdani pointed to one stat in particular from Kaufman’s data: 23% of those surveyed said they wouldn’t have taken the trip if the bus were not free.
“We’re talking about New Yorkers gaining access to the city they live in,” Mamdani said. “This pilot allowed New Yorkers to take the trips they wanted to take and live their fullest life.”
Notably, the free-fare pilot has not appeared to increase fare evasion on nearby routes — a fear MTA brass had repeatedly voiced in the run-up to the trial.
On average nearly 50% of bus riders system-wide currently skip the fare.
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