Brian Ler on WNMYC, now another segment comparing the candidates in the New York City

mayoral primary on a key issue of interest to many of you this time, transportation, including good, affordable,

and safe mass transit, congestion pricing, and the chaos on the city streets involving cars,

pedestrians, and various kinds of two-wheelers. A few things in this regard are getting most

noticed or standing out from the pack as subjects of debate and

discussion so far. One is the proposal by Assembly member from Queens, Zeran Mamdani, to make all

New York City buses free. Here's Mamdani in a video he posted on Instagram.

As a state legislator, I won $15 million to fund a first of its kind fair free bus pilot

that led to a 30% increase in weekday ridership and a 38.9% decrease in assaults on bus drivers.

Now I'm running on a plan to make every bus fast and free. So Ramam Dani advocating free buses,

but not everyone likes that plan, including the head of the MTA,

Geno Lieber. Here's Lieber when I asked him about the idea on this show a few weeks ago.

Mondami, you know, is a supporter of transit, and we love having supportive transit in the

elected office. We tried his idea of free bus on different lines. It actually,

most of the additional ridership was identified, cannibalized other lines. So you're taking people

who were paying on other lines and they were just getting a free ride, which isn't evil.

But my basic principle is I want to target our subsidy to people who need it,

which is why we support the Fairfares program so strongly. It's the program that gives people

of low income, a half-price ride, like as if you are a senior. And we have pushed the expansion of that. We've pushed for making

the eligibility at a higher income level. And we're signing people up like crazy, even though it's

not our program. It's the city's program. We're the ones signing people up at our customer

service centers because we want people to become eligible who are at the low income level.

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