Several proposed expansion plans for the “Fair Fares” low-income transit discount program would be far cheaper than Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to make all city buses free, although they would benefit different populations, according to a pair of new analyses from the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO).
In its two reports released Wednesday, the independent budget watchdog found that even the most expensive proposal for growing the city-subsidized Fair Fares program would be roughly half a billion dollars cheaper than implementing fare-free buses, a vision that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has long championed.
