By Alexis Goldstein
This text was initially revealed by Truthout
Zohran Mamdani’s plan without spending a dime buses just isn’t a pipe dream. Montgomery County, Maryland, made its buses free this 12 months.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and its related financial downturn, many individuals couldn’t pay their transportation prices, and infrequently didn’t. In New York Metropolis in 2021, some 21 % of bus riders didn’t pay the fare, a determine that grew to 48 % in 2024. Some native governments, together with New York Metropolis, responded with decreased or free fare applications. From 2023 to 2024, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) ran a zero-fare bus pilot that served round 43,000 riders. The pilot, championed by then-assembly member Zohran Mamdani, supplied free journeys on one bus in every borough.
To increase this small pilot to common zero-fare buses all through New York Metropolis is a tall process, with a whole 2024 bus ridership of 409 million and 6,300 buses. As mayor-elect Mamdani and his administration look to develop zero-fare buses in New York, they’ve a stellar instance just some hours south of New York, in Maryland.
The biggest free bus program in Maryland by ridership is in Montgomery County, a suburb north of Washington, D.C.
Montgomery County first made its “Journey On” buses free to all riders beneath 18 in 2019. Then on June 29, 2025, it made all of its buses fare-free for all passengers. The system has a fleet of practically 400 buses, 80 routes, and offered 19.2 million rides within the 2025 fiscal 12 months. Within the three months since free fares had been instituted, ridership has elevated by 5.4 %. Phil McLaughlin, Basic Supervisor of Transit Providers for Montgomery County Division of Transportation (MCDOT), mentioned an estimated 1 % to 2 % of that ridership enhance got here from instituting zero fares.
One purpose Montgomery Nation’s Metropolis Council adopted the zero-fare program was monetary. Montgomery County decreased fares in the course of the pandemic from $2 to $1 and noticed decrease fare revenues (dropping from $10 million to roughly $1.6 million) total. When confronted with the necessity to improve its fare assortment techniques to tap-to-pay to be able to align its fare packing containers with Washington D.C.’s Metro system, it grew to become clear that changing the fare packing containers would value greater than they might recoup: The price was estimated at $22 million and would take roughly eight years to start turning a revenue. As well as, it value the county $557,000 yearly to gather fares. Montgomery County was confronted with both paying police to implement fares or going fare-free. County Govt Marc Elrich proposed a totally fare-free bus system in his 2026 fiscal 12 months proposed working funds, and the county council adopted it quickly after.
Montgomery County Councilmember Evan Glass, chair of the Council’s Transportation & Surroundings Committee, instructed Truthout that fare-free buses are “bringing actual impacts for Montgomery County residents” and the elevated ridership reveals that “value boundaries make an actual distinction. In a county with a median revenue of $115,000, in comparison with $35,000 for the typical bus rider, fare-free transit is basically about fairness.”
The oldest free bus program in Maryland is probably going Baltimore’s Allure Metropolis Circulator (CCC), first established in 2010 by then-mayor Sheila Dixon and funded by state transportation division grants. In 2024, the CCC offered 1.43 million rides, in line with the Baltimore Metropolis Division of Transportation. The CCC has over 100 stops alongside 5 routes, with buses arriving each 13-20 minutes, and operates on an $8 million funds. Its influence has been overwhelmingly constructive: a 2022 rider survey confirmed that over 40 % of people that use the CCC would have used single-occupancy autos to make their journeys, if not for this free service, thus lowering total visitors congestion and automobile emissions.
These applications, whereas essential, nonetheless have to be constructed upon. Beforehand, native residents have identified that the bus service has a historical past of disproportionately serving majority-white neighborhoods and vacationer mainstays, and has linked primarily to the town’s largest predominantly white establishments similar to Johns Hopkins and the College of Maryland, whereas not providing the identical degree of service to majority-Black neighborhoods or Baltimore’s traditionally Black schools and universities, similar to Morgan State College or Coppin State. Extra public funding within the city-wide transit applications may help bridge the hole. In a single promising enchancment, Baltimore mayor Brendan Scott just lately introduced an growth of the CCC to a few East Baltimore neighborhoods starting on December 7. The Baltimore Metropolis Division of Transportation instructed Truthout that the growth is aimed toward “enhancing fairness of metropolis companies” and that it’ll add quick, free transit choices to “communities which have comparatively low automobile possession.”
Dr. Lawrence Brown, a analysis scientist within the Heart for City Well being Fairness at Morgan State College, instructed Truthout that whereas “there may be nonetheless work to be performed,” the modifications to the CCC since 2020 — together with the Cherry Hill line addition in 2024 (which serves a neighborhood that’s 90 % Black and traditionally redlined) — “represents a change in the suitable path.” Dr. Brown elaborated that “The Inexperienced line modifications are positively an enchancment from an fairness perspective because it extends into traditionally redlined central East Baltimore,” however “the Brooklyn/Curtis Bay neighborhood continues to be being disregarded though it additionally has large transit wants.”
In an interview, Minister Glenn Isaac Smith, co-founder and president of the Baltimore Transit Fairness Coalition, instructed Truthout, “We had lengthy advocated for the extension of the circulator” together with its growth into Cherry Hill, and known as the November modifications “a welcome addition.” He continued, “The East Baltimore extension will service individuals who want transportation and a whole lot of occasions can’t afford it, particularly if they’re on a hard and fast revenue and have to journey to physician’s appointments, or have to journey to purchase groceries because it’s a meals desert.”
West of Baltimore, the extra rural however quickly-growing Frederick County made all of its mass transit free at first of the COVID-19 pandemic and by no means went again. Transit Providers of Frederick County, which incorporates buses and a paratransit service known as Transit Plus, served slightly shy of 1 million riders in fiscal 12 months 2025 [928,650 riders], a file ridership for the county (up from over 540,000 journeys in FY2022). It operates on a $9.3 million funds and has six traces and a fleet of 48 buses, 4 of that are all-electric and powered by a photo voltaic array on the Frederick County landfill, in line with an emailed assertion from Mary Dennis, Communications Supervisor for Transit Providers of Frederick County. Its buses additionally serve lots of the native meals banks in Frederick, a truth marketed on Frederick Transit’s homepage.
Frederick resident and Transit Plus rider Jose Gabriel Coronado Flores, who makes use of a wheelchair, instructed Truthout that “I’m glad value is not a priority.” Coronado Flores identified that Transit Plus’ scheduled hours intrude with civic participation for the aged and disabled individuals who depend on it, as many Frederick County authorities conferences occur later within the night, when Transit Plus not schedules journeys. This “retains out many disabled folks from taking part within the processes which should do with them,” Coronado Flores mentioned.
Christian Benford, a candidate for Frederick County Council, instructed Truthout, “It’s implausible to have a program that gives various journey, reduces carbon emissions, and is at no-cost to residents.” Benford additionally identified enhancements could possibly be made to accessibility within the county total, including, “Frederick, as an entire, just isn’t very walkable. So, whereas there are stops at key areas, it nonetheless requires crossing harmful intersections or shifting on uneven or poorly maintained public infrastructure.”
Like New York, Maryland confronted decreased fare collections on buses within the state in the course of the pandemic. Reasonably than growing enforcement, Montgomery County and Frederick County, applied momentary decreased or zero-fare measures. Seeing the monetary and public advantages, each counties went absolutely zero-fare completely. Zero-fare buses deal with a key fairness hole famous in a 2024 report by Montgomery County known as “Journey On Reimagined,” which discovered that 27 % of Montgomery County residents in Maryland make lower than $20,000 a 12 months, exhibiting the necessity without spending a dime public transit to attach residents to jobs and schooling. Maryland’s zero-fare bus applications present an necessary mannequin to the incoming Mamdani administration and others who need elevated fairness of their cities.
Extra can and needs to be performed in Maryland, as these developments in buses are coming amid a $2.1 billion statewide shortfall in public transit funding, resulting in the elimination of many new highway and transit initiatives. In Baltimore, a light-weight rail extension known as the Pink Line was cancelled in 2015, and “set transportation in Baltimore again ten years,” mentioned Smith. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has made getting the Pink Line constructed considered one of his platform guarantees, and Smith mentioned, “We sit up for additional expansions into the east-west hall” of Baltimore.
Like in New York, there may be a lot coordination that should happen between state, metropolis, and county governing our bodies to make public transit ship higher for all its residents. However Benford, at the least, sees alternative in what’s left to be performed: “It is a nice occasion to foster higher partnership between the county and metropolis councils to have interaction with constituents. We could have completely different governing our bodies however ought to all the time search for significant methods to work collectively.”
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