Albany County

More than a decade before Mamdani was even born, the streets of Downtown Albany were filled with free buses. They whizzed by the Capitol and other government offices on a regular basis, all thanks to a $326,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to study how eliminating bus fare affects ridership.

The Freewheeler buses — yes, that’s what they were called — ran during daytime, off-peak hours on routes running through Albany’s central business district from 1978 through 1980. (During peak hours, the regular fare was 40 cents.)

Ridership went through the roof. Three times as many people rode the bus during off-peak hours during the work week when fares were eliminated — a jump from 1,070 daily average riders before the pilot program took effect to 3,040, according to a 1981 federal study. On Saturdays, it was a fivefold increase, from 270 to 1,340.

The study showed the free buses didn’t bring more people to Downtown Albany. Instead, people simply shifted their travel habits.

Workers and residents who had been accustomed to hiking up Downtown Albany’s steep State Street hill hopped on the bus instead. Downtown residents made fewer trips by car, though not by much — about 353 fewer car miles per day, not enough to make a meaningful reduction in emissions, according to the report.