Remembering a very short-lived experiment in the mid-1980s
Some have applauded and some have scoffed at Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to provide free bus rides to make the city a little more affordable, an idea that would cost the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (meaning, taxpayers and straphangers) some $600-$800 million a year. The idea is not without precedent: Some buses and subways were free during and just after the 2003 blackout, Superstorm Sandy and the COVID pandemic, among other times. And cities around the country have experimented with the idea.
But there was a long-ago New York City episode when the buses and the subways were free not because of an unforeseen disaster, but because of an idealistic plan thrown together by the City and State. Albeit it was only for two nights, one year apart, and for an entirely different reason. But it gives us insight into what can happen when public transit no longer requires a swipe or a tap (or in those days, a token), and how the best-intentioned plans can go very wrong, even comically so, when they unfold in New York City.
On New Year’s Eve 1984, no fares were collected on the subways, buses and commuter lines from 8 p.m. until 8 a.m. the next day. The metal gates near the token booths in subway stations stood open, and the bored clerks looked on as thousands of riders streamed through. The turn of the following year, the buses and subways were again free, but the commuter lines opted out of the plan. That was it. For every New Year’s Eve, since it’s been pay-to-ride in the city and region.
The rationale for the free rides was to cut down on drunk driving accidents on the drunk-drivingest night of the year. Naturally, the decision by Metro-North, the Long Island Railroad and NJ Transit not to participate in the second year undercut this goal, as the suburbs were where most such accidents occurred.
The program’s origins are fascinating to contemplate in the context of today’s somewhat dysfunctional city and state governments, as are the reasons it ended. Basically, it was seen as a disaster, with bands of revelers turning the trains and buses into rolling New Year’s Eve parties and engaging in all kinds of mayhem.
The Daily News reported that the Long Island Railroad “was plagued with vandalism, including broken windows and slashed upholstery, littering and drunken joy riding.” And the MTA, then as always strapped for cash and against the program from the start, refused to lose what it said was $1 million for a third free New Year’s Eve.
“The ridership was much heavier than anyone anticipated,” remembered Joseph Smith, at the time assistant general manager for the Manhattan division of the Department of Buses for the MTA. “People would go bar-hopping on the bus. You have to remember, there was no Uber back then.”
While Smith doesn’t recall any specific vandalism, or at least any more than usual for the time, he noted, “We did have a lot of dirty buses.”
Though largely forgotten, to New Yorkers of a certain age those two distant holiday nights of open gates remain a particularly visceral memory, both bad and good.
The plan was thrown together at the last minute with enthusiastic buy-in from then-Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, Mayor Edward I. Koch and Carol Bellamy, president of the City Council. All were Democrats, and while it was rare that they all agreed, they apparently worked together better than the three officials who today inhabit those roles, also Democrats (well, one independent).
“We had different views, but we still tried to work with each other, and find some area of common agreement,” Bellamy told me in a recent interview.
MTA Chairman Robert Kiley, a key architect of the remarkable resurgence of the then-graffiti-slathered subways, resisted the idea but ultimately bowed to pressure. He was able to reach 11 of the 14 MTA board members during Christmas week and poll them, and despite concerns about the loss of revenue, they agreed.
The news was met with pun-happy joy by the newspapers. “A Token but Sober Gift,” wrote The New York Times, which dismissed the MTA’s financial concerns. “Token of city’s love on New Year’s,” headlined the Daily News.
At the time, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) were very much in the news, as was federal legislation to make the driving age 21. But in hindsight, Bellamy wondered about the seriousness of the problem in New York City, especially among young New Yorkers who generally didn’t get behind the wheel until their early 20s. She recalled, for example, putting extra money in the police department budget to teach raised-in-the-city cadets to drive.
Were the free rides on New Year’s Eve a bid to curry favor with voters by giving them something? To placate MADD? Or perhaps the aim was to mitigate the sting of a fare increase to 90 cents from 75 cents that kicked in the same night? (In other New Year’s Eve 1984 news, Brooklyn and Queens broke free of 212 and got their own 718 area code.)
“I don’t think anyone thought, ‘Oh Gosh, people are going to vote for us because we gave them 12 hours of free subway rides,” Bellamy said. On the other hand, she warmed to the newspapers’ suggestion that it was a gift to New Yorkers.
“It was New Year’s Eve,” she said. “It was one of those things, where you could say – ‘Hey, boy, we really did something here.’ There’s nothing wrong with that. You occasionally look for something that actually makes people feel good about themselves. Not just about you, but about themselves as well.”
In the end, not everyone felt good about it. Especially those cops who had to bust the drunks and those subway workers who had to clean up the mess.
The MTA said there were 55 felonies aboard subway trains and in subway stations and 29 felony arrests in 1984-into-85, as opposed to 33 felonies and 15 felony arrests the year before, according to The Times.
'”There were a fair number of groups who got on trains with no particular destination other than to ride the train as a place to have a party,” said Bruce McIver, head of the Long Island Railroad. Of the 225 trains operating that night, 100 were delayed because of incidents, including 53 that required police assistance, 43 cars suffered interior damage, such as ripped seats, and 31 stations were vandalized, The Times said.
I benefited immensely from that New Year’s Eve gift, even if it wasn’t meant for me.
In 1985, William Murphy, an MTA spokesman, noted that the higher crime rate the year before could have been partly due to the high ridership. ''There was more crime last year when the fares were free, but there were also more people and we don't know how to match it up,'' he said.
After the slimmed-down repeat in 1985, Kiley wouldn’t budge in 1986, and everyone who rode that New Year’s Eve had to pay (in theory at least). The idea cropped up a few more times later in the ’80s, but was shot down, and has since faded from memory. Other world capitals still do it, such as Paris – where the Metro is free on New Year’s Eve and early the next day. (Although, as usual, it doesn’t run all night.)
What are the lessons for Mamdani’s bus plan, if any? Several transit professionals and Bellamy said they were against the free buses — “I don’t support giving away things for free,” she said — but no one believes bus riders will go bonkers and vandalize the vehicles and turn them into rolling parties. Indeed, pilot programs have shown that free or reduced fare buses result in fewer attacks on drivers.
At the same time, it seems clear that even if the fare is seemingly modest, removing it will bring far more riders to the system.
Though largely forgotten, to New Yorkers of a certain age those two distant holiday nights of open gates remain a particularly visceral memory, both bad and good. I’m one of them.
I was a freshman in college home for the holidays in Park Slope. That night I took the D train from 7th Avenue to Avenue U — “Avenue next!” the conductor would announce — to meet a girl who was a senior at my old high school. We rode the train to Greenwich Village, where I took her to dinner at Pizzeria Uno. Then we subwayed all the way back to her apartment, where we toasted to 1985 with some random bottle from her parent’s liquor cabinet.
Later, I rode the trains — still packed — to Cobble Hill to meet two friends, brothers. They were nowhere to be found despite our plans, and with cell phones long in the future, I could only sit miserably on their stoop in the cold and hope for the best.
I gave up after an hour and walked to the IRT station in the St. George Hotel. I had an egg sandwich at the counter in the lobby, chatting with another kid I’d known from high school whose name I’ve forgotten. Homebound revelers and workers were all around us, including off-duty and clothed topless dancers from the notorious and grim nearby “Club Wild Fyre.”
Then I took the IRT from the St. George to Grand Army Plaza, walked home, and fell asleep as the sky lightened.
So I benefited immensely from that New Year’s Eve gift, even if it wasn’t meant for me. After all, I was just like those raised-in-the-city cops: I didn’t know how to drive.