MTA bus fare revenue drops $31 million as free-bus rhetoric drives evasion surge
NEW YORK, Aug. 14. Bus fare revenue fell $31 million during Mayor Zohran Mamdani's first six months in office compared with the same period in 2025, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported. Paid bus ridership declined nearly 8% in June year over year, and agency estimates show nearly half of all bus riders now skip the $3 fare.
Key takeaways
- MTA bus fare revenue fell $31 million during Mayor Zohran Mamdani's first six months in office compared with the same period in 2025.
- Paid bus ridership dropped nearly 8% in June year over year, and the MTA estimates nearly half of all bus riders now skip the $3 fare.
- MTA Chairman Janno Lieber attributed part of the decline to campaign 'talk of free buses,' referencing Mamdani's 'fast and free buses' platform without naming him directly.
- Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on July 8 a shift toward speeding bus routes rather than eliminating fares.
- The Independent Budget Office estimates fare-free buses would remove roughly $1.1 billion a year from MTA revenue, which is already projecting a $300 million deficit for the coming year.
NEW YORK, Aug. 14. Bus fare revenue fell $31 million during Mayor Zohran Mamdani's first six months in office compared with the same period in 2025, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported. Paid bus ridership declined nearly 8% in June year over year, and agency estimates show nearly half of all bus riders now skip the $3 fare.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber pointed to campaign rhetoric as a contributing factor in July, telling reporters after a board meeting that "all of the talk of free buses" was having an impact, according to the New York Post. He did not name Mamdani directly. The mayor had made "fast and free buses" a central platform in his 2025 campaign.
The MTA is controlled by the state under Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, not City Hall. Mamdani and Hochul announced plans on July 8 to shift focus toward speeding bus routes rather than eliminating fares. Transit officials and union leaders say the campaign-trail language had already reshaped rider behavior before that adjustment.
John V. Chiarello, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents more than 40,000 transit workers, told Fox News Digital the evasion levels are the worst bus operators have seen. He connected the pattern to the COVID-19 pandemic, when buses ran without charge, and said the MTA spent years trying to undo the resulting habits. "Once you make something free, and you give people a feeling of entitlement, and then the mayor says that he wants to make buses free, you have a perfect storm of people not wanting to pay," Chiarello said. Union rules bar drivers from confronting evaders directly, he added, following violent attacks on operators in prior years.
Chiarello also disputed the idea that evaders are uniformly low-income, describing riders in business attire boarding without paying. Lieber made a similar point, calling on commuters heading to office jobs to pay rather than shift costs to other taxpayers.
Revenue and deficit exposure
Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute specializing in urban policy, said the Independent Budget Office has estimated that fare-free buses would remove roughly $1.1 billion a year from MTA revenue. The agency is already projecting a $300 million deficit for the coming year. "The idea of giving up a billion dollars plus in fare revenue from the buses, when you have no way to replace that, it's just not fiscally wise," Gelinas told Fox News Digital.
She also described a compounding dynamic: paying riders watch others board without charge and stop paying themselves. Mamdani has said widespread non-payment reflects an affordability crisis. Fox News Digital reported it reached out to the mayor's office and had not received a response.