The MTA said fare-free buses became *slower*

Welcome to The Mamdani Meter's weekly-ish scorecard, where we assess the progress the city has made in fulfilling the mayor’s campaign promises.

In Week 17, two promises moved:

In 2023, New York City launched five free bus routes, one in each borough. A key goal of the pilot was to improve bus speeds. Yet the MTA found that, while ridership increased on those five lines by roughly 35%, bus speeds did not improve. So they unceremoniously gutted the program.

Reasonable people concluded: removing fares won’t speed up one of the slowest bus systems in the country.

But that’s not the full story.

When a New York City bus pulls up to a stop, every single rider boards through the front door. One at a time. They fumble at the farebox – digging through bags for an OMNY card, tapping a phone that turns out to be locked, retrying, and then tapping too quickly. The bus idles and everyone waits.

This is called dwell time, the time a bus spends loading and unloading at stops. According to the NYC Comptroller's office, dwell time can account for up to one-third of total trip time.

When the MTA made five routes fare-free, it did not change the boarding process. Riders still lined up at the front door. When boarding, some passengers still paused at the farebox, not realizing the route was free.

Plus, because buses were free, more riders showed up. So dwell times on the free routes increased by 7%.

As every bus rider knows, there was a glaringly obvious solution: open the back door. 

Renowned transportation economist Charles Komanoff ran the numbers on what fully fare-free buses with all-door boarding would actually do. He found it would reduce dwell time on the Bx12 alone by six minutes, translating to a 12% reduction in time to complete the route.

And this isn’t just theory. In fact, the MTA already has evidence that all door boarding on fare-free buses is a speed booster. Every Select Bus Service route allows riders to buy their fare ahead of time and board using any door. Those buses are able to move at an average of 8.7 mph, 12% faster than local buses.

If political will isn’t there to make buses fare-free, why not at least introduce all-door boarding? After all, buses are equipped with OMNY scanners at all doors, making this possible to implement immediately.

Yet when activists, city council members, and other elected officials begged the MTA to open the doors, the MTA's response has essentially been: no, and also, how dare you. 

The MTA Chair has been staunchly against all-door boarding due to fare evasion (which is already at 44% on buses) and creating “rider confusion” — which, I believe, is the MTA suggesting that New Yorkers will think that entering through an open back door magically changes the fare.

So fare free + all-door boarding has become a bit of a package deal. 

The pilot didn't fail to speed up trip times because free buses don’t work. It failed because the MTA ran a free bus experiment while keeping a key cause of slow buses completely intact. And then it blamed the idea instead of the execution.

Last week, Mamdani appointed a czar for “Fast and Free Buses.” In addition to advocating for more bus lanes, we’ll see if she begins beating the drum for all-door boarding.

Till next time,

Niki

PS If you learned something, forward this to the person in your life who complains about the bus being slower than walking.