Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at a city that made the buses free. We’ll also get details on a lawsuit challenging a new city law about tips for delivery workers.
Free buses have been talked about in New York since Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June. One place that has already gone fare-free is Iowa City, Iowa. I asked my colleague Cara Buckley, who went there and rode the buses, to talk about what she saw — and whether Iowa City’s experience is transferable to New York. What was the vibe when you got on the bus the first time? Very chill. Our photographer, Annick Sjobakken, and I boarded at Iowa City’s downtown transit hub, which is where the buses originate. It was like jumping on an airport shuttle — there was just nowhere to pay. It was pretty empty at first, but things picked up as we neared the hospital and the University of Iowa campuses. Still, even at its most crowded, the bus had nothing on the crush of a New York City subway or bus at rush hour. The whole ride just felt easy and relaxed. I spoke to more than a dozen riders — college and high school students, a stay-at-home dad, a substitute teacher, a nighttime Amazon warehouse worker who couldn’t afford to fix his car. They all really appreciated the free bus. More broadly, what have been the results of making the buses free in terms of ridership and traffic? Bus drivers told me that traffic is noticeably lighter since the buses went fare-free, and the Iowa City government reported that ridership has surpassed prepandemic levels by 18 percent — this is far ahead of the national average. A big part of the impetus to go fare-free was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. According to the city, emissions are down 778 metric tons since the buses went fare- free. Here in New York, Mayor-elect Mamdani campaigned for free buses to help make the city affordable. That wasn’t what prompted Iowa City to look into free buses, was it? Darian Nagle-Gamm, the city’s transportation director, told me that she and other city officials first began talking about fare-free buses in 2018, a full six years before Mamdani announced his mayoral candidacy. And Iowa City’s fare-free program launched in 2023. So maybe Mamdani got the idea from them! Iowa City’s population is a fraction of New York City’s — the population is only about 15 percent of the population of Staten Island, the city’s smallest borough. Did Iowa City’s relatively small size help when it went fare-free? Iowa City is indeed comparably teeny. This absolutely helped city officials to be nimble. They also started the fare-free program during the pandemic, when ridership was down, and used Covid-19 relief funds to pay for a two-year pilot to see how viable or popular fare-free buses were. They extended the program by one year last summer, but the funding stream, arguably the most crucial component, is not guaranteed. Are there lessons from Iowa City that can be applied to New York? This might be a case of apples and oranges. Part of the impetus in Iowa City was to challenge the car culture by getting people back on buses after the pandemic, while encouraging others to try public transit for the first time. Mass transit is something that is second nature for New Yorkers. A recent urban policy article also noted that New York gets a fifth of its bus operating expenses from fares. In Iowa City it’s just 8 percent. Iowa City pays for the free buses with slightly higher taxes and parking charges. Higher taxes are usually a third rail for government. Has there been any grumbling? I encountered very little grousing. Iowa City raised utility bill taxes by 1 percent and doubled most of its parking rates to $2 from $1 to pay for the fare-free bus program, but it was the first rate hike for parking in more than a decade. The executive director of the downtown business district said the free buses made the area more accessible. She also said that people working in retail shops and restaurants liked taking the buses to work because it was way less of a headache, and cheaper, than trying to find parking. What about the bus drivers? Did fare-free buses create new hassles for them? Have passengers behaving badly been a problem? Has crime been a concern? Several bus drivers told me that not having to collect fares actually made things easy for them, because it sped up the boarding process and removed the friction point of having to challenge fare avoiders. One driver, however, said he felt like not having to pay fares encouraged misbehavior, such as high schoolers roughhousing, playing loud music and vaping. The transportation director told me that the big growth in ridership “far and away” outweighed an increase in conduct-related incidents. WEATHER Expect mostly sunny conditions with a high near 42. Tonight will be mostly clear with temperatures around 29. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING Suspended for snow removal. The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Uber and DoorDash try to halt a law on tipping
Should delivery platforms show an option for you to add a tip of at least 10 percent? A package of new city laws would require online delivery companies to include a prompt for that — or more, less or nothing at all — when you place your order. Two of the largest app companies have gone to court in an effort to block the laws, which are scheduled to go into effect in late January — about three weeks after Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office. He has been critical of the delivery industry. The two companies, Uber and DoorDash, filed suit in federal court in Manhattan last week, arguing that the new laws would violate the First Amendment by compelling them to “speak a government-mandated message.” That message, according to the companies’ lawsuit, is that customers should tip delivery workers “and that 10 percent is an appropriate amount.” The lawsuit also claimed that customers would use their platforms less if they had to navigate past a “mandated pre-delivery 10 percent tip suggestion” because of “tipping fatigue.” Tips to the city’s 80,000 delivery workers have plummeted since some food-delivery apps switched to showing the tipping option only after a purchase had been completed. That shift came after a 2023 law set a minimum pay rate that nearly doubled workers’ earnings, to about $24 an hour. METROPOLITAN DIARY Riders’ reading
Dear Diary: I was on the 4 train to Brooklyn reading a copy of “Angel” by Elizabeth Taylor, which was published in 1957 and is not a book many people read these days. I glanced up to see a young woman across the aisle who was also reading a book. As a librarian, I’m always thrilled to see anyone with a book in their hands. As I started to look away, she gave me a big, broad smile and held up her book: “Angel.” I was stunned. I approached her and asked whether she had read the same article that I had, about novels with unlikable, manipulative female protagonists in which “Angel” was mentioned. She had not but had just been browsing in a book shop, and had read the blurb on the back, which piqued her curiosity. And there she was. Subway reading serendipity is joyful. — Pam Abernathy Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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