3 ways Mamdani plans to make the bus faster — and why it's harder to make rides free

• NYC commuters told BI they would rather have a reliable bus than a free one.
• Mamdani is rolling out plans to widen bus lanes and improve transit infrastructure.
• It's cheaper to make buses faster than to make them free.

Sarah Moelis impatiently swirls the ice around her half-full Dunkin' coffee as she rides the M15 bus up the length of Manhattan. Some days she has to run to catch it, and says it's not reliable.

The 27-year-old is one of the dozen bus riders who told Busines Insider they'd prefer "fast" over "free" in Mayor Zohran Mamdani's bus promise, a cornerstone of his affordability agenda.

This month, they're getting a glimpse of how the mayor proposes to deliver, working together with Gov. Kathy Hochul to invest in quicker routes, new equipment, and higher-quality bus stops. Financed with $900 million over five fiscal years, the efforts will focus on 50 bus corridors, with the first phase planned for five key routes in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.

As the administration's officially-designated Bus Czar Elizabeth Adams told me this spring, "The mayor knows that a free bus is only good if it comes."

Investing in bus maintenance and lane space could boost speed

The Mamdani administration said that making buses faster requires three big changes. The first is bus improvements: Strengthening maintenance operations, phasing in all-door boarding in every vehicle, and ensuring that every bus has functional tap-to-pay features.

Next, the mayor plans to invest in bus stops, which will include adding seats, shelters, trees, and real-time schedule information to stops across the city.

Keeping bus lanes clear is the third piece of the puzzle — a line item that will require wider bus areas on major avenues and automated camera enforcement to track speeds and catch drivers illegally using designated transit lanes.

If the plan is successful, the Mayor's Office said these improvements will shorten commutes, reduce traffic collisions, and speed up buses across the city. Still, critics worry that adding bus infrastructure could worsen congestion and decrease parking options for cars. On some routes, automated cameras have also issued thousands of tickets by mistake.

Route improvements like this could make a material difference for riders. A 2025 analysis by the NYC Comptroller's Office found that one-third of buses fail to arrive at their scheduled stops on time, and that over half of lines with frequent service experience delays due to "bunching," or inconsistent spacing between buses.

Of course, building more lanes only addresses half of Mamdani's bus plan. City Hall's reason for tackling "fast" before "free" is largely budgetary. NYC bus fares generate $652 million a year, which is used to offset the system's multi-billion-dollar operating cost.

Making buses free would cost at least $700 million annually, covering both lost fares and the steeper maintenance costs that come with higher ridership. This money would need to come from the city and the state, which operates the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Adding more dedicated lanes and improving bus stops is far cheaper and requires less red tape with Albany.

The "free" part of Mamdani's pledge could also contradict the "fast" goal. New York experimented with no-fare lines on five routes in 2023. While the pilot increased ridership, it cost the city millions and slowed bus service. Kansas City and Boston have seen similar mixed results with free bus experiments.

For now, NYC has begun construction to expand bus lanes in major corridors like Manhattan's Lexington and Madison Avenues. The city hopes to achieve many of the route, bus, and bus stop improvements in 2027. The "free" part will take longer, if it happens at all.

Life-long New Yorker Shaliek Loabhont said that he feels comfortable paying a few dollars, as long as the city directs money to "fixing the streets so buses can run faster." Daily rider and 30-something teacher Yulia Chulad added, "I'm not sure if I would be taking the bus if it were free, to be honest."