Should the Bus Be Free? With Yonah Freemark
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2025
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Should the bus be free? That's the question everyone following the New York City mayoral race is asking, with Democratic primary winner Zohran Mamdani promising to focus on fast, free buses if he's elected to City Hall. Eliminating bus fares is a big idea, but is it a good one? Like a lot of things in politics, there's no simple answer. That's why we asked Yonah Freemark — a researcher in cities, land use, and transportation at the Urban Institute — to walk us through the pros and cons of making the bus free for everyone. Whatever you think about it, the good news is that everyone is talking about bus riders. That's a win in our book.
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SHOW NOTES
Learn more about Yonah Freemark and his work at the Urban Institute.
Watch Zohran Mamdani on The Breakfast Club.
Charlie Komanoff: Free buses would mean faster buses and more riders. (Streetsblog)
Andrew Cuomo has a less ambitious free bus plan. (Gothamist)
Boston has free buses on three routes. (Boston.gov)
New York's free bus pilot. (MTA.info)
This episode was recorded at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, it's Doug. |
| 0:02.0 | So let's say you're in the market for an e-bike, but aren't sure where to start. |
| 0:06.0 | For a lot of people, just the sticker price alone can be a big barrier. |
| 0:11.0 | That's why I'm a fan of Upway. |
| 0:13.0 | Upway is a really cool online marketplace with a huge selection of certified pre-owned e-bikes, |
| 0:19.0 | all at discounted prices. Think of it like buying an affordable, certified, pre-owned e-bikes, all at discounted prices. |
| 0:25.8 | Think of it like buying an affordable, certified, pre-owned car, but for e-bikes. |
| 0:31.9 | In fact, that's exactly what Maxim Renson, the head of Upway U.S., told me. |
| 0:34.7 | Our business model, it's quite simple. |
| 0:39.0 | It's a similar business model to a carana or CarMax, but apply to e-bikes. |
| 0:41.3 | So we buy, use d bikes. |
| 0:46.0 | We bring them to one of our warehouses where we repair these bikes, |
| 0:49.7 | up to the point that we're comfortable to put a one-year warranty on these bikes, |
| 0:52.8 | and then we'll sell them with a discount, |
| 0:55.2 | and it will ship everywhere in the country where we operate. |
| 1:02.9 | When you visit upway.co, you'll have instant access to hundreds of e-bikes from all the major brands, |
| 1:06.0 | all sourced from Upway's trusted partners. |
| 1:11.2 | Sometimes you have previous seasons models that have not been sold. Sometimes there was a bit of overproduction of a specific model. |
| 1:14.4 | And these bikes, we buy them in bulk. |
| 1:16.4 | So we can get a pretty attractive purchase price. |
| 1:18.7 | And then we put that back into the selling price. |
| 1:20.7 | So that's why we can offer almost new bikes at a fraction of the price compared to retail. |
... |
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