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Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Transit Tangents
Should Buses Be Free?
What if the fastest way to speed up buses isn’t a new gadget, but removing a ritual that steals minutes at every stop? We dig into the push for fare-free buses—why the idea is surging in New York City, what Kansas City learned after rolling it back, and how speed, safety, and budgets collide when the farebox goes quiet.
We start with the tangible wins: all-door boarding, shorter dwell times, and less anxiety for occasional riders who don’t know the local payment dance. Then we press into the hard limits. Many U.S. agencies still rely on fare revenue to keep buses running, and political whiplash can turn “free” into a yo-yo policy that undermines trust. We talk frankly about safety perceptions and why staffing, cleanliness, and consistency build confidence for the average rider. And we compare that to European cities, where higher fares often buy rock-solid reliability that people value every day.
If you care about public transit policy, urban mobility, and how to make buses faster right now, this conversation brings examples, and practical tradeoffs. Listen, share your city’s experience, and tell us where you land: free fares, better frequency, or both with a stable funding plan?
But our free bus is a good idea for New York. What about for other parts of the country? Find out this week on transit tangents. This year there has been one topic that seems to have been coming up quite a bit recently. We encountered it when we were in Kansas City earlier this year, and then most recently it is making a lot of news with the mayoral race in New York City, with Zoran Mamdani currently running for that seat, and his plan talking about free buses in New York City. So we're not going to just talk specifically about New York City today, but we thought it would be a good opportunity to kind of make the ultimate pros and cons list of all of the good things that would come with free buses, as well as some of the negative things that come with free buses. And we tried to include a few things here that you might not necessarily be thinking of right off the bat.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And if you are currently watching this and you're looking at our background and saying, well, two things. One, Lewis, Chris, and Lewis are in the same room. Yes. We are together in Europe. And if you're looking at this background, we are in a hotel on a very tiny couch. On a very tiny couch in Munich. And this is our second stop on our sort of first ever Transit Tangents European tour. We did Vienna, now we're in Munich. We'll go to Zurich next. So a lot of fun, fun stuff to come.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, those episodes will be coming in the next few weeks. So keep an eye out for those. And if you're not subscribed, be sure to do so so you don't miss out.
SPEAKER_01:But on free buses, at first glance, it kind of sounds like cool, great idea. Why, like if what's better than free, Lewis? Free is always great. Absolutely. And we've actually seen instances where there have been free buses in in certain cities. And I think this has probably happened in more places than we really know globally. But a lot of our focus or all of our focus today is really going to be on examples that have happened in the United States. But we have actually encountered a free bus system in the wild.
SPEAKER_00:That was in Kansas City on our trip earlier this year. We filmed four episodes in Kansas City. A lot of them actually were pretty interesting. We got a sneak peek behind the scenes of the Kansas City streetcar uh maintenance facility, which was really interesting. Thank you, Donna and Lauren, for that. Yes, and and uh congratulations on the the extension opening this week when this episode comes out. Um but in Kansas City, they have a free bus or had a free bus system, um, which kind of will we'll this will be very relevant when we get into some of the pros and cons here. Uh it was a free system when we were there, which offered a lot of flexibility. We didn't really have to think about it while we were boarding. Um so it was a nice opportunity to be able to test this out.
SPEAKER_01:Kind of felt weird getting on the bus without having to like tap after going to so many other cities. But it was free, which is really cool. Now riders on the average one-way trip pay about$1.50, and those fares were reinstated back in uh spring of this year, largely due to budget cuts to the system, and they needed some way to keep the buses rolling.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, but before we get into too many of the specifics, just because if we talked about Kansas City too long, our pros and cons list would uh be no more. Uh so let's start off by jumping into some of the pros of a free bus system, starting off with financial accessibility.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. As we said uh early in the episode, who doesn't love free stuff? And having this free service um you would think maybe encourages people to use this system, but we haven't really found much evidence that it being free actually encourages that ridership.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Uh generally speaking, you know, folks who have to ride the bus because they're not able to, in the United States, unfortunately, afford a car, which is crucial to live in a lot of places, but expensive, um, those folks are gonna be riding the bus anyway. Uh and folks who you're trying to encourage to ride the bus and get out of their car usually are in a financial situation. And there's exceptions to this, of course, but are usually in a financial situation where paying the buck 25 or 225 or whatever it may be in your city isn't necessarily gonna be a make or break for whether they make the decision to ride or not.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, and and as we were talking about before the episode, you know, you can have a free bus, but if it's still not a good bus, you're not going to encourage more people to ride it. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_00:The next pro on the list here, though, is just ease of use. Um, there's a lot of stress uh and anxiety in terms for people. I remember in our very first episode, I think you you had some sort of phrase for it. Cord anxiety. Oh, that was different. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Cord anxiety because I was on the bus and I I didn't know when to really pull the cord. I didn't really have a lot of experience in public buses. I had much more experience with train systems. Um but yeah, I didn't yeah, I didn't know exactly when you pull the card. When to pull. I thought it had something to do with paying. Uh so well, there's also the anxiety of like, I don't know where to tap the thing, or if you can use a credit card, or like people don't know.
SPEAKER_00:So and and that's something for for folks with like when you show up in a new city, or let's say you don't use public transit very often, you get up to the bus and maybe you have your credit card out, but maybe the bus only accepts cash, or maybe it doesn't accept cash and it only accepts a credit card, or maybe you need to download an app and bus token. Bus token. It's been a while, probably for bus tokens, but uh it eliminates that sort of question for folks and makes it much easier for people to just not even think about it and just get on the bus.
SPEAKER_01:The third point here is going to be the speed of loading, specifically uh speed of loading on the bus. As you mentioned, you know, if you don't really know how to pay, if it's a cart or a tap or whatever, you get to the bus and if it's free, you just walk on. So uh not only do you just walk on, but you can walk on not just the front door, but you can walk on maybe the back doors. Or if it's a bendy bus, you get to choose one of like three or four doors. Right. So the uh the speed at which people can actually enter the vehicle and then the driver uh be able to shut the doors and continue on the journey, that uh gets cut nearly in half, I would think.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe even more. I mean, because uh for those of you who maybe don't ride the bus so much who are watching, and I would imagine a lot of you if you're watching this are familiar with riding buses, but maybe not. Uh, at least in the United States, uh, most buses, you're all lining up at the front door to get on. So if only one person's getting on the bus, not a big deal. You get on, you scan your QR code, or you pay your dollar or tap your card, and you walk on and go. But at a busier stop, uh, for instance, I remember when we were doing our Austin in a day using only public transit episode, we were getting on the bus at UT, getting on the 803, I believe. And there was a line of probably 10 or 15 people getting on the bus. And it takes a long time for 15 people to all stand in a line, walk through, have various different ways to pay. In Austin at the time, the QR, we had the old QR code readers. It can take 10 seconds to get that thing to work. Multiply that by 15 people, that's an issue, and all of a sudden the bus is now sitting there for one minute, two minutes, whatever it may be. Um, and instead, in a free system, yeah, you people board in the front, people board in the middle, people board in the back. No, the bus driver doesn't need to worry about checking anything. It really speeds the entire process up and works more like a system that we've seen while we've been here yesterday in Vienna, where it's it's much more of an honor system. Yeah. So folks do board in all of the doors and it goes much quicker.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and there's there's systems that are quicker than what you're describing in Austin. I mean, when I was just in London a couple weeks ago, and London is a tap-to-pace system, so you just tap your phone or credit card to the reader, uh, and then you're allowed to get on the bus. But as you're saying, there's still a line of people coming on. Right. And granted, people are fast, but it's a line of people coming on, and when you add up those extra seconds just over the course of the entire route of that bus, now you're adding extra minutes to the availability of the buses coming through and like you know how often you're gonna see them. So absolutely, you know, if we were in London and we were able to board from the back or the front, would have made things a little faster. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And this speed point to bring it back to what we kind of introed the episode with talking about Zoran Mamdani's plan in New York, is kind of his main thing is that buses in New York City are among the slowest in the country. Uh, and a lot of that is because so many people are getting on and off of them at so many places. And I actually had the opportunity to ride some buses in New York City uh in it was last September actually. I was uh in New York for a wedding, we were staying with some friends who live in the city, and they actually rode the bus quite a bit. I had only ridden the subway in New York, and it was really busy, and it did stop a lot, and folks were going on. And even with the tap to pay, when you have the volume of people who are riding buses in New York City, it takes a while. So a big point that he has been making is reducing dwell times at these stops along the way is what will ultimately make the buses go faster. So it's not just about making the buses free, it's making them faster, which then makes them also more attractive to ride. Another pro to having free buses is it's one less thing for the bus driver to have to worry about. Bus drivers are dealing with a lot. They're obviously driving or dealing with driving a large vehicle, which on its own, especially in a city, uh, is a lot of work, takes a lot of focus, but they're also essentially making sure that people are paying their fares. It's kind of their responsibility to make sure that that's happening. If there is some sort of issue going on on the bus, whether it's really in their job title or not, they are the first responder, they're the first on scene to have to deal with it. If there is some sort of safety concern on the bus, they're the one necessarily you know dealing with the brunt of it. So um this eliminates one piece of the job that they don't necessarily need to worry about.
SPEAKER_01:Moving on to some of the cons of having a free bus system, and it's like, what? How can you have cons having free, free stuff? Well, the number one thing that stands out is there's no revenue generation. Right. And a lot of these transit agencies, especially those that aren't, you know, massive cities in the US, they really do rely on that fare revenue to keep the buses rolling. And, you know, is that right? Should we think about public transit more like roads and subsidized more heavily and yada yada? That's a whole other conversation. But at the end of the day, when a transit agency is facing a budget shortfall, they really do have to rely on fares to make up a lot of that gap.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not like that's not a problem right now in the US because it's a problem in a ton of places. Uh, if you watch the channel, you've seen we've covered the situation in Philadelphia fairly extensively right now with interviews with both uh Steve from How We Get Around as well as uh Jay from the Roosevelt Boulevard subway movement to kind of get folks up to speed on what's going on there. But if you were to try to like do this in Philadelphia, it would be a disaster for service because fair uh revenue makes up a huge percentage of the operating budget of SEPTA, the system there. So um, yeah, I mean, it is a it is a big concern, I would say. Uh this is definitely a point where I'm, you know, free is great, but it's it's an issue for sure.
SPEAKER_01:On the other side of revenue generation, or uh topics very closely related, is that the politics uh that come into play when you are adjusting these fares, you're potentially setting yourself up for a pitfall here if you introduce a free service, and then now you're taking that free service away from people and then charging a fare, nobody likes their free stuff taken away.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And I mean, Kansas City literally just had to do this, and at least like good for them that they were able to pull it off. But in the political landscape today, I mean, uh, if you have the budget for it one year, but it might be questionable next year if it's gonna be a thing, it's gonna be really unpopular to take away that that free thing that you're giving to folks. So uh definitely something to be concerned about. Um continuing on though, and this one's a little touchy to talk about, and I'm honestly not a hundred percent sure the right way to talk about it. And if you're watching and you have someone that we should talk to about this topic, I would love to do an episode where we interview someone on this, but uh I'm I kind of broadly put this in in here under safety, and part of this is a lot of folks on the right in particular are pointing to this as a major issue with public transportation, but also I don't even think that's fair. I think there are plenty of people on the left who are are justifiably like concerned about safety on public transit. Um, there obviously have been like a few major incidents that went very viral that happened on this that are horrible. Um, and there is an argument to be made that having free transit leads to people being on the bus who are not necessarily only there to ride the bus and get from point A to point B.
SPEAKER_01:They're not really riding with a direct purpose or like a purpose of being on the bus to get from point A to point B.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And it does invite people, you know, you you have homeless populations or on house populations in cities across America who do use the bus as a means of shelter, um, to, you know, sometimes it's to get from point A to point B, but a lot of times it's just to get out of the point B.
SPEAKER_00:And unfortunately, like that you end up with the unfortunate reality that like in the United States, we don't provide another good place for those folks to be, and it leads to situations for folks where they are feeling uncomfortable on those transit vehicles. It's definitely like I again I kind of said at the beginning is I don't know exactly how to talk about this, and we would love to explore this topic more. Um, so if anyone watching has recommendations of folks we should talk to about this issue, I do think it's something that should be discussed more openly. I know that uh Wamada, um, the GM there in Washington, DC, Randy Clark, um, he has been kind of focusing on this quite a bit. I think he's trying to play politics well. I mean, he's been doing good at it. He's trying to make sure that his agency has funding to be able to continue running service levels and is being successful at that. Um, but this has been an issue that uh he has spoken. He's a good Twitter follow if you don't follow him on Twitter, but he talks about this all sorts of stuff on there. But um, yeah, interesting topic to look into, but wanted to include this on here because I do think that uh it's worth mentioning as a potential con.
SPEAKER_01:It's important and it's something that we don't talk a lot about a lot on the the show, but you know, systemically as a country, obviously there's a lot of things wrong with the way that we uh we treat people who are unhoused or have substance abuse issues and all this other kind of stuff. We don't really provide the right services, but it is a reality that there is a perception of of um uh poor safety of unsafe conditions on public transit in the US. And a lot of people who who wouldn't really consider public transit is that transit, they always cite that as like a reason why they don't want to take a look at the transit.
SPEAKER_00:To be clear, I think I do think it is overblown like quite a bit. Um but but I mean uh yeah, I mean I know people who have had instances on public transit though myself, so it's just like you know, it it is a concern. Um moving on to another con here though, just the optics. Um I I think like it's easy for folks who are against public transit spending to point at it and be like, why are we spending money on this? Like they're not even contributing it to contributing to it at all. Uh they should have to pay something for it. It's just an easy thing to point at.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know who doesn't like free stuff? I shouldn't even say Republicans, I was gonna say. Maybe we don't get too political. Yeah. But anyway, that it is it is absolutely true. Uh there are optics to it. There, I think people look at uh a free bus service, and if you're already anti-transit, you're gonna look at it and say, like, oh look at this socialist thing that we're just spending money on and it's useless and no one rides the bus. And this, of course, is quoted from somebody who never has ridden the bus.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I would also say, too, even to like even remove some of the political angle to it, is roads are heavily subsidized. And like, you know, sure, you do contribute some, and that's why I I I and this is a point for me why I think we probably should be paying for public transit or at least most of it. Um you know, drivers contribute some via the gas tax, via their vehicle registrations, but that does not even come close to funding roads and highways and the maintenance of all of those roads and highways. Uh, a lot of it is heavily subsidized through other means uh through the federal government. So, you know, um it goes both ways.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, but I do I do think um it's a good point though. You want to make sure that you are showing that um agencies, especially public agencies, have some type of viability financially. Uh, and this is one way, one way to do so. Another potential con here is the quality of service or even the perception of the quality of service. Um, if you pay for something, you expect good service, right? So if you are paying for your bus fare, if you're paying for your train fare, I think that is sort of your agreement with the transit agency that you are are trying to keep the transit agency accountable. If you're not happy with the way the service is going, you're not going to take it if you have an option. Right. Uh but if you're not happy with how it's going, you're not gonna take it. That is gonna have a hit to fair revenue. The less people who are taking it because they don't like the quality of service, the agency's gonna take notice, hopefully, and make changes. So I do think that that the quality of service can be impacted uh by us paying for public transit.
SPEAKER_00:Totally. And even just your perception of just like you're sitting at the bus stop and it's like, ah, a bus got cancelled, and you almost don't even feel like you can complain about it because oh, I'm not even paying for it. You know what I mean? I mean, you're paying for it one way or another through taxes and whatever it may be, but it yeah, I I think that's uh an important point.
SPEAKER_01:This is because we're so brainwashed uh to be capitalists, Lewis, that we feel like there has to be monetary value associated with quality. You know what though?
SPEAKER_00:I I I do think though that there's I know you're making a joke, but I do think that there's like something to be said that I mean, I so I've been living in Germany for a couple months now, and in this smaller city that I live in, transit is more expensive than anywhere I have been in the US if you're buying like day passes. However, people don't mind paying it because it is so reliable. I mean, we on many routes, there's buses every five minutes, streetcars every 10 minutes. Like it's you can get around fine and you know it's gonna be reliable and it's gonna keep coming, but people pay for it. And I think that in the United States, in some cases, like I mean, I think about where we're you know in Austin, a buck twenty-five for the bus, like in my mind, like they could probably raise that price, not lose ridership, make sure that they're taking care of lower income riders with a subsidy, which they already do this in some cases, so they already have the information, they can make sure that their fares don't rise. But for others who are using it and can't afford to spend one extra dollar, that you know ultimately could make an impact. Now, Cap Metro has, you know, decent funding with sales tax revenue and that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01:But but I do think that in the US we have a different perception of what is going to drive ridership. And we think of the American transportation budget is already going to be very car focused. And so if the fare to take the bus is only$1.50 and you can spend less taking the bus than you would in gas, then it would make sense to take the bus. Unfortunately, the American mindset doesn't really work that way when it comes to uh balancing, you know, riding the bus versus convenience and independent freedom and car ownership and all that. But I do think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do think in Germany the way transportation budgets are thought of is also very different. Like you may pay a little bit more for the bus, but also you may not drive for two weeks.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean a lot of people don't have a car. Like a lot of I mean, Germany still has plenty of car culture, obviously, but yeah, uh there are a lot less cars per capita, basically, than there are in the United States by far. Um, and yeah, and it's because the system is set up that there are plenty of alternatives that are just as convenient or more convenient in some cases. So one other potential con that I wanted to get to here, and I haven't heard anyone talk about this, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but and this is specific to New York City again with uh Zoran's proposal. Um, again, his proposal would make buses free, but the subway would still have a cost associated with it. And I'm wondering if making the buses free will incentivize more people to take the bus instead of the subway on routes that kind of make sense and ultimately drive more bus ridership, but not from like new transit riders, but instead pulling away from the subway, making the buses almost overcrowded in a way, thus just like making them less convenient to use. I mean, you would need to add more buses when you do this, you know, transition to free buses, and Zoran has talked about doing that as well. Um, but all of a sudden now it's like you're increasing the amount of buses while making them free, and I think it potentially takes some riders away from the subway in exchange, which the subway has the capacity for more people. And the reason I have kind of coming to this conclusion is uh in Germany, the closest example I can have, and this is not a one-to-one at all, but um, I have the Deutschland ticket, which is a pass that covers free public transportation. It's not free, I pay 54 euros a month or something for it, but it covers public transportation in every city across the whole country, as well as all regional trains, just not the high-speed trains. Not like no ICE or IC trains are covered. Um and what I have seen is in instances when you're going from two cities that are fairly close to each other that have both regional rail service and the high-speed ICE trains, it might only be 15 or 25 euros or something to use the high speed to go between them, but a lot of people pay for the Deutschland ticket like I do, and they're not saving that much time by riding the ICE over the regional. And what ends up happening is those regional trains get jam-packed, like standing room only. And I've I've encountered this on the Leipzig Leipzig to Dresden route that I did an episode about a couple weeks ago, if you haven't seen it yet, and you end up with standing room only on the regional trains, but the ICEs have plenty of room, and it's a similar instance here where it's like you know, you can get on the regional train essentially for free with the Deutschland ticket, or you can pay for the ICE, which is essentially the regional trains are the buses, the ICE is the subway. Obviously, the distances and all that sort of stuff is different, but I think it's something to consider. Yeah. If that makes sense, does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01:I understand what you're saying. You know, we we implement this, and then Mom Dani's just like, one more bus, bro. Uh what a great problem that would be. One more bus lane, bro.
SPEAKER_00:I'm I support one more bus lane, bro. But uh that's a question I would ask Zoran if I if I had the chance to.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I I do think that I I get what you're saying. I do think at some point um New York is dynamic enough that if that were to happen, people start trying to take the bus more, they realize it's overcrowded. I think there's gonna be an ebb and flow back and forth between the buses and subways ultimately. Fair. But I also something tells me I think most New Yorkers are still gonna just prefer the subway. I could be wrong, but that's just my gut feeling. Uh obviously have never lived in New York, but visited plenty of times, know plenty of New Yorkers, but that's just my gut feeling.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out, assuming Zoran Wednesday looks like that's probably gonna be the case. Um, we'll see.
SPEAKER_01:So I guess ultimately it comes down to um what do you think? Like, do you think a free bus system is viable at any point? Do you think they're always bad? Um, you know, when when would this work?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, I like want it to be a thing, right? I think in an ideal world, right, the budget's there, the government's not gonna have a financial crisis when politicians change and one party's in charge and then another party's in charge, and everyone was just like, yeah, free buses are great, we 100% should be putting our resources there. I think yes, I I love it. But I do get concerned because it, you know, sure, there there may be the budget for it in New York City today. And in, you know, New York has a huge budget, they probably can pull it off in the even in the long run. But if that ever changes, again, it is tricky to go back on it. And maybe maybe I'm overstating how tricky it is to kind of go back because we watched Kansas City flip a switch and do it basically overnight. I mean, we were there in March, and then by like May or something, they were paying fares for the bus again.
SPEAKER_01:I'd argue the difference there is that Kansas City it's a fraction of the population using the system, whereas 50 or more than 50% of the population of New York City uses public transit to commute.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I mean, the other element of this, and I'm not sure exactly how the funding would work out here. I mean, New York City has now created additional revenue generation with the uh congestion pricing. I don't think that there is necessarily a one-to-one on that's how that would be funded or anything like that. But um, you know, that they're getting creative with other ways to fund transit there, and it's seemingly working. I'm gonna knock on wood uh just because I know there were a bunch of lawsuits, but so far it looks like New York and and I we'll we'll give some credit where it's due. I mean, we put Kathy Hokel on our transit villains last Halloween, and she's really she's really turned around. I'm impressed.
SPEAKER_01:She's redeemed herself from the uh the transit villains. Well, we were gonna reach out to Kathy Hokel's office next time. I meant has any commentary on redeeming herself on our list. Like what changed, yeah. Our list is very important.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, of course. I'm sure she knows about it.
SPEAKER_01:I think it was our transit villain list that changed her mind.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, probably, probably.
SPEAKER_01:Um I do, but I do agree with you. I think that uh I think that in an ideal society, which we don't live in, this would be a great system. Like if we lived at Disney World, you know, take the bus, take the monorail. Um for free. But I do think that uh for all the the cons that we listed, it's just it would prove to be incredibly, incredibly challenging uh to do this and and have it be sustainable. And I think the biggest risk, and you've already hit on it, is that there are economic downturns, there are energy crises, there are uh changes in opinions between uh political classes. And so I just think it it would put the system at risk, and then you're putting so many people who would then rely on that system also at risk.
SPEAKER_00:And one one point I guess I I didn't make yet, and I don't think you made yet either, is instead of okay, even if you do have the budget to make it free, I would rather you take the fair revenue and make the service even better than than make it free. You got you got 10-minute frequencies right now? What how much is it gonna cost to get it to seven-minute frequencies? Like, oh, uh, you have one route that covers this neighborhood. Can we have a second route that extends and goes a little bit further? Like, I would almost rather see it go towards more reliable, more frequent service than nicer newer trains. Yes, because what is gonna get people to ride more? More reliable, more frequency, all of those sorts of things. Like that increases transit ridership. That gets people to question, oh, do I need to drive everywhere? Can I can we deal with being a one-car household? Can we go to a no-car household?
SPEAKER_01:Like, or you use the fair revenue to even, you know, like clean the stations. Yeah, use it for skin at you, Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_00:Philadelphia is dealing with a lot of a lot of shit right now, Chris. All right, we don't need we don't need a pile on Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, we saw it all in the stations. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Philadelphia was a wonderful transit system. We had a great time. It actually was.
SPEAKER_00:Like it worked well, but yeah, yeah, they're do they're dealing with a lot.
SPEAKER_01:But it was it was really dirty.
SPEAKER_00:It was it was smelly more than anything, I would say. But um, all right, before we start talking shit about anyone else, uh let us know what you think. I'm very curious to hear people's thoughts on this. There's been a lot of discourse, I feel like, uh online about this topic. Um, very curious to hear from people. If you're in New York City, let us know what you think as well. Especially I'm curious to hear uh if you think too many people will start riding the bus or if that's not reality. I don't know. Um would love to hear about it. Um definitely stay tuned over the next couple weeks as we're gonna have a lot of fun content coming. It might be a week or two before it gets started, um, but we will have episodes from Vienna, from Munich, as well as from Zurich coming, uh, which we'll be very excited to bring to you.
SPEAKER_01:We're also gonna be covering the opening of the Silver Line in Dallas, which is um one of really Dart's newest line in a long time, and it's gonna connect DFW to Plano, so stay tuned for that.
SPEAKER_00:If you want to support the show uh to make sure we can go cover things like the Silver Line in Dallas, uh to you know, kind of show off what these different transit systems look like in different parts of the country, and even occasionally uh don't get used to necessarily the you know, Chris and I being in Europe for this, but Chris was already in Vienna for work, which was pretty amazing. It's a six, seven-hour train ride for me to meet him there, so we were pretty excited to be able to pull this together.
SPEAKER_01:But you can kind of think of transit tangents as a free transit system, and you know, if you pay a little bit in fare to take this ride with us every Tuesday, then you get a better service.
SPEAKER_00:What he said. Uh, you can you can do that via uh our Patreon, you can check out our merch store down below, uh, buy us a coffee. I believe we have YouTube memberships turned on now too. I don't know if anyone's done that yet. I'm still playing with it, so uh keep an eye out for that. But uh we would greatly appreciate it. If you can't help out that way, just sharing the show, subscribing, which by the time this comes out, we might be at 10,000 subscribers, which is amazing. So thank you all for that. That's cool. Uh I think we were like eight away or something while we were while we're recording this. But alright, I'm talking too much. Uh thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Engines Tuesday.