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Mayor Zohran Mamdani may be getting those free buses after all as enforcement of New York City’s $3 bus fare is on pause following a series of confrontations involving MTA agents.
The agency’s 350 fare enforcement agents — who don’t have the authority to make arrests — are on the bench after a pair of caught-on-camera confrontations.
And the NYPD says it has no plans to help.
That presents a vexing problem for MTA Chair Janno Lieber, whose agency is losing more than $300 million a year to farebeaters on the bus. The agency estimates roughly half of bus riders simply don’t pay and walk right past the driver, who is not required to intervene. Lieber has said the situation is untenable — and that the so-called EAGLE team of fare enforcers is necessary to correct rider behavior.
But Mamdani and the NYPD will not be coming to Lieber’s aid.
NYPD spokesperson Brad Weekes said “the NYPD has no plans to assist with EAGLE team enforcement in the future.”
Mamdani’s spokespeople have cited the EAGLE team controversy as further evidence of the need for his signature policy proposal of making the buses free. The mayor has yet to propose a way to replace the money the MTA collects from bus riders.
MTA spokesperson Tim Minton said the “NYPD is the agency responsible for law enforcement on subways and buses, and of course we are confident that will continue.”
The finger-pointing highlights an apparent change in policy. In 2024, the EAGLE team and NYPD under then-Mayor Eric Adams collaborated on bus fare enforcement.
Lieber said at a news conference Wednesday that the EAGLE team will pause pending an investigation while the agency ensures that enforcement agents are properly trained and that “everybody is playing by the rules.”
“I’m confident that we’re going to be able to come out the other side with an even better operation,” Lieber said.
MTA officials are now weighing whether or not the transit agency could equip EAGLE team members with body cameras. The MTA also plans to be more explicit with the riding public on how to file a complaint against a transit employee.
Lieber said the complaint system will be an item the MTA brings up at the end of its ongoing investigation of the EAGLE team. The agency is looking into the alleged assault of Brooklyn high school aide Kyle Taylor, who plans to sue the transit agency over a run-in with the EAGLE team earlier this month.
Video of the confrontation showed fare agents pinning Taylor against a bus shelter before shoving him to the ground in Brownsville. The alleged farebeater was taken away in an ambulance. Taylor said he had paid for his ride.
The agency is also looking into a second incident Lieber referenced when announcing the fare enforcement pause.
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Gothamist obtained videos of that clash on Aug. 6, which show a man getting off the Bx39 bus at East Gun Hill and White Plains roads in the Bronx with an EAGLE officer close behind. The officer tackles the man to the pavement. Three more officers then try to restrain the passenger.
“Let go of my arm!” the man says, to which an EAGLE team officer responds “No.”
The videos do not show how the struggle began. The NYPD said no one was arrested in connection with the incident.
Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, described the pause as a “hiccup” to combating fare evasion, but that paying the fare is an important civic duty in New York City.
“There’s no doubt that we have to bring down fare evasion across the board,” she said. “Without the fares, we have a potential for seeing service reductions and a decrease in reliability, and those are things that nobody wants at all.”
Carol Chen contributed reporting to this column.
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NYC transportation news this week
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Why can’t the city fix Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway? Ocean Parkway was designed in the late 19th century as a peaceful, idyllic promenade stretching 5.5 miles from Prospect Park to Coney Island in Brooklyn, but these days, it’s a six-lane highway known for reckless driving. City data shows that over the last five years, seven people have been killed and 74 were seriously injured in crashes on Ocean Parkway. But state regulations prohibit Mayor Mamdani — whose administration has focused on redesigning dangerous thoroughfares — from implementing a sweeping redesign of the street. Like the West Side Highway and the FDR Drive, Ocean Parkway is technically run by the state. Any major changes to its layout must be overseen by the state transportation department, not the city.
The Midtown bus terminal rebuild is moving ahead. A new deck over a section of the Lincoln Tunnel entrance in Hell’s Kitchen will be used to store buses and supplies while crews tear down and rebuild the Midtown bus terminal, and once the project wraps, the space will be converted into a new park.
Brooklyn’s Third Avenue will be redesigned. The city transportation department said a deadly stretch of Third Avenue in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood will undergo a major overhaul that will replace traffic lanes in each direction with bike lanes and shorten the street’s pedestrian crossings.
City folk head upstate to leaf peep. This year’s super El Niño is making the autumn foliage brighter and last longer, so the Metro-North has added more trains to and from the Hudson Valley to accommodate flocks of people hoping to spend a bucolic weekend peeping leaves outside the city.
The ban on permits for new street fairs continues. Mayor Mamdani’s administration is extending a decades-old moratorium on new street fairs through 2027, citing a likely increase in NYPD overtime. The city can reject applications for any street fair that did not take place in 2026, but fairs held this year are able to renew permits for next year.
An E-bike lithium-ion battery caused a Bronx fire that killed a 10-year-old. Four others were also critically injured. According to FDNY data, lithium-ion batteries have caused more than 400 fires across the city this year, resulting in 74 injuries and six deaths.
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Curious Commuter
Have a question for us? Use this form to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter!
Question from Tony in Hartsdale, New York
“What was behind Metro-North’s decision to have its tickets expire at 4 a.m. on the day following their purchase?”
The MTA enacted this policy in January 2025 on the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road as a way to ensure riders pay their fare. Instead of activating their digital tickets on their phones during the course of their ride, many riders would stash them for a later trip. The Citizens Budget Commission had estimated the commuter railroads were losing $46 million a year in skipped fares. Under the new policy, unactivated tickets bought on the MTA’s TrainTime app expire at 4 a.m. the next day. Riders can also be fined $8 if they’re caught activating their ticket after they board the train.
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Join us for a conversation with MTA Chair Janno Lieber
Lieber joins WNYC’s “On The Way” at The Greene Space on Nov. 17 for an in-depth conversation on the country’s largest mass transit system. Lieber is the 14th person to run the transit agency, but only the fourth person to hold the job for more than five years. He joins WNYC Transportation and Infrastructure Editor Clayton Guse in The Greene Space to discuss what the transit agency means to New York and the future of the transportation networks used by millions of people every day. “On The Way” subscribers can use promo code “OTW” for 20% off tickets. Information and tickets are available here.
