Next Stop: Fast Buses, Better Service - A chat with NYC's DOT Commissioner, Mike Flynn

New York City has the most famous subway in the United States, yet the bus is the workhorse that moves millions of people every single day. That’s why we sat down with Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn to unpack NYC’s newly announced Bus Action Plan and the specific, measurable goal at the center of it: make buses 20% faster without leaving rider comfort, safety, or accessibility behind.

We get into the real mechanics of bus priority, from dedicated bus lanes and busways to the political reality of reallocating street space in a dense city where every curb has competing needs. Commissioner Flynn explains why leadership matters when public opinion wobbles right before a major change, and why partnerships between city and state agencies are essential for turning a plan into actual on-street results.

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Transcript

Why Buses Still Matter Most

SPEAKER_02 0:18

When we talk about public transit projects in the U.S., all of the focus gets put on light rails, subways, and trains. But even in New York City, the place with the most extensive subway network in the country, the city sees 2.75 million bus riders a day. Current mayor Zoran Mamdani has decided to make improving the city's bus network a key focus of his administration. His first act as mayor on January 1st was actually to appoint his transportation commissioner. And today I got a chance to chat with him for 30 minutes about the recently announced bus action plan. We'll dive into the details of the plan, learn how Commissioner Flynn plans to make buses 20% faster, and hear about how the city is building world-class bus rapid transit. Let's jump in. So to kick us off, your boss, Mayor Momdani, obviously put a huge emphasis on improving public transit for New Yorkers during his campaign. And something that I really appreciate about his emphasis was that it wasn't exclusively about subways and trains. It was also really about buses. And I make a joke on this show quite a bit that buses aren't sexy. And I wish that that wasn't the case necessarily because they do deserve more credit. But with all of that being said, I'm curious to hear kind of your elevator pitch for this recently announced bus action plan and kind of why it's important. And then after that, we can kind of dive into some specifics.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Sure. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Lewis. I think someone could be forgiven for feeling like the bus has been kind of forgotten, right? And and and the other uh other things, whether it's subways or bike lanes, you know, get get all the attention. Um you know, I think the bottom line is that a million New Yorkers rely on the bus. There's two and three quarter million trips every day on the bus in New York, and that's more than the next few major cities combined. Uh, and yet we have some of the slowest buses on average in the nation. Um we also know that bus riders in New York uh are disproportionately women, people of color, uh, from households with lower income. We also know generally that there's a lot of riders uh with disabilities or older adults, uh caregivers. All of that really underscores just how much of a lifeline buses are for so many New Yorkers and why it's so important to fix them. And I think that's exactly why Mayor Mamdani really homed in on that as a campaign issue.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Absolutely. So

The Four Goals Behind The Plan

SPEAKER_02 2:54

uh I've kind of gone through uh the plan here. And for folks who are interested, I'll make sure there's a link to the PDF that goes into all the specifics if you want to kind of follow along with this. But uh the plan is kind of broken up into four main goals here. We've got fast, reliable buses, uh valued bus riders, which focuses on kind of creating uh better comfort for riders and more uh like things like bus shelters and things like that, uh, a culture of courtesy and respect, uh, as well as uh creating quality transit for all, increasing areas or increasing access to areas that have less rapid transit service uh today. But kind of want to start off with uh like focusing more so on creating fast, reliable buses, because I feel like that can have the biggest impact for people uh right away.

Building Bus Lanes Without Backlash

SPEAKER_02 3:38

So um a big goal is to improve bus speeds by 20%. A big way you can tackle that is by creating more dedicated infrastructure for buses. So uh right now, according to your department, 7% of New York City streets with bus routes have dedicated bus lane infrastructure. I'm curious to hear a little bit of what it's like to actually go about building new bus lanes and what it's like trying to navigate the politics behind reallocating that street space, which I know can be a tricky conversation.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

You know, in a city as as dense as New York, the streets are kind of like our front yard, right? People walk out their front door, and what's the first thing you experience? What do you experience every day on your commute? Pretty much anywhere you need to go. So it's natural that folks feel very tangibly when there's changes to the street, have lots of thoughts and opinions and feelings about it. Um, and you know, you're right. We we kind of need a good process to um to have those discussions, to hear those concerns. Um, but I guess your your question was also just about the bus lanes uh broadly, right? We need to speed up buses at least 20%. And so bus lanes are a big part of that, dedicated bus lanes, but what we call busways, which are kind of um may have bus lanes but or may not, but basically limit other through traffic um to have to turn, basically, and and not be able to continue down a street. So basically buses can move pretty unimpeded. Uh, those are two of the key strategies. And as you also, I think, alluded to, we'll talk later, I'm sure, about the idea of these rapid bus corridors where we really start to take it to the next level and have bus rapid transit uh style corridors. So I think first and foremost, it's by being very clear about what the purpose is, right? This is uh a it's it's a solution to a very real problem. And it's something that New Yorkers can see and they can feel, especially if they're bus riders. But I think even if they're not, we all feel sometimes what can be chaos on our streets or uh a lack of civility, people blocking bus lanes, people double parked, um blocking traffic. Everyone can relate to that, whether they drive or not, whether they take a bus or not. So I think, you know, as long as we're very clear about what the problem is that we're trying to solve, I think a lot of folks really understand it. Uh anytime we make trade-offs or anytime we redesign our streets, there's trade-offs. Um, and you know, um there could be inconveniences, uh, certainly during construction, um, and and there's change. And and it's human nature anytime there's change, maybe there's it can be a little uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Oh, absolutely. And I mean, uh you you hear stories like that over and over again in cities across the country too, where like, you know, making those changes can be really difficult at first. But uh I remember a conversation that I had with the folks who run the Kansas City streetcar team. They they shared a specific example with me of a business owner on the on the corridor who was the biggest naysayer about the project ever, all the way, was trying to fight tooth and nail through the whole thing. And now he is one of the biggest supporters of the project because he has seen how many new visitors to his business have have come in as a result. Um so it is it is a uh give and take of trying to navigate all these sorts of things. And uh I've got the privilege to talk with different advocacy groups and and folks like yourself across the country to kind of hear these little different stories and whatnot. So uh definitely interesting to hear your take on that. Um I'm curious. Okay, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

I was just gonna say, you know, and and and some of that I think, like having been in this industry a long time, it's unavoidable, right? We saw this with congestion pricing in New York too. It's like some people call it the hockey stick or the valley of doom or something like that, right? Like public opinion, people get kind of uncomfortable as big changes get closer. But once they see it, and your example with the business is a great, you know, it's a great example. Like once they see the benefits, what's once they see the change, that's so much more real than the abstract idea. And some of that we just have to accept. And I think that underscores the importance of leadership too, though, right? To to see these things through, to let New Yorkers experience the benefits.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Absolutely.

Big Changes Need Real Leadership

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Uh, and I I I want to give her some credit here because I I feel like I've been mean to her on the show in the past, but we have we've since corrected the record here. We've covered congestion pricing on the show in the past, and uh it was Halloween a couple years ago. We did a fun episode that was transit villains. And regrettably, Governor Kathy Hokel made our list of transit villains when she was against congestion pricing. However, we've been very happy to see her come around on it and be a very big advocate for it. I won't make you comment on that. I don't want you to get in trouble, but uh, we've been very excited that uh Governor Hokel got got on board with congestion pricing because I think in New York, you all have such a unique position to set the precedent. Our audience is national, to, to, to do these big bold things that hopefully other cities and states across the country uh can take advantage of. So I was very excited to see both the mayor and the governor uh you know working together um and to to actually get congestion pricing uh across the finish line. So um but been excited to see that.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, and and I gotta say, since it, you know, congestion pricing is in the past, it's it's implemented now, it's wonderful. I gotta say sincerely, like I am appreciative of the governor and her team and and the MTA chair Lieber and his team uh definitely for the leadership they're showing, because honestly, for this plan to succeed, it's gonna have to be a partnership. And that's exactly what it's been to develop the plan. And now that's what we're gonna do to implement it. Uh, but it really does take two to tango in the case of buses in New York City. So uh I'm really uh grateful and excited that we have leadership at both the city and the state levels.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah, it seems like from afar that you all are working well together. So hopefully, hopefully y'all can keep that up because uh yeah, I mean that that'd be great for everyone. And for folks who who don't know necessarily too, just a quick caveat, the MTA uh interject if you can do a better job of explaining any of this, but the MTA uh is run by the state of New York, like they have the ultimate say, not by the city, so that's why that state and city coordination uh is so important.

Signal Priority And Queue Jumping

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Um I'm curious as you're kind of doing these uh you know 50 new projects, I also saw that uh signal priority and queue jumping systems are a piece of it. Um I'm curious how you all think about where to implement those and kind of like how in practice it actually uh comes into play. And the reason I ask this is uh we were in Miami a few months ago to go check out their new BRT project, which I have to say is beautiful. I don't know if you're familiar with this one. It's the one that literally has like the crossing arms, like it would almost be a train and sections of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Um I haven't seen it in person yet. I hope to.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah, so I mean it is it is really beautiful infrastructure. The one bummer on it for me was the signal priority is currently like in one direction at one time of day, and it is along such a busy corridor that when you don't have the signal priority, it it almost feels slower than being along the main road. They have a whole bunch of other issues to deal with because it's a Florida DOT right-of-way and whatnot. So it's complicated. But I'm curious how you all are thinking about implementing signal priority and and these Q jumping systems in New York.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, for sure. We've been slowly rolling out signal priority for a number of years now, and I think you know it's it's an interesting technical challenge. You know, it's something that we're learning about as we do it, and I think it's iterative. And luckily, you can always update a traffic signal timing plan, right? So we're always studying to see how that TSP, as we call it, is performing and you know, whether it's giving us the speed benefits that we want. I think in some cases it has, in others it's it hasn't. And so we're trying to learn, and we're always trying to learn and improve as we go. Um, with the Q jumps, you know, I guess it it's there's there's strategies we take that are really about improving a whole corridor, right? And then sometimes, though, you really just have these hot spots. And this also relates to the enforcement with the manual New York Police Department, NYPD enforcement, where you can do a whole bunch of different things, but you still see some challenges. So I think Q jumps also fall into that category. Like they may not be appropriate everywhere, or you may not be able to do them everywhere, but there may be hot spots along a route where just be letting the buses basically get the green, or in our case, it's sort of a white vertical line, get the signal in advance of the general traffic uh and get to the front of the line basically can have a huge impact. Not every intersection, you'll see that impact. So we try to be really thoughtful about where we put those. Um, but it but it's one of those things that really doesn't cost a lot, but could have a real great benefit.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah, I kind of like that. They're a unique, again, like you said, you can't use them everywhere, but like they're a unique tool for like the right spot. And I also feel like it it's probably an easier sell to to people who aren't using the bus as well, because it's like it's a small thing. It's not like, oh, we're gonna adjust your signal timing to the point where you're really gonna be. I mean, these numbers are small anyway, but like, oh, it might adjust the timing by 30 seconds or something before. This is like a couple seconds, five seconds to let the bus get ahead first, and then everyone can go. So it feels like a small ask to be able to kind of get those in. So I was I was interested or excited to see those uh listed in

Enforcing Bus Lanes For Real Speed

SPEAKER_02 13:04

there. Um you mentioned enforcement, so uh we can kind of move on to that. So uh I feel like uh not being from New York myself, I've I've visited plenty of times, ridden the bus, ridden the subways, and whatnot, but I always see uh videos on my my TikTok feed. I I probably spent too much time in there, but people uh in the bike bike lanes and and bus lanes potentially being blocked and whatnot. So I know that this is uh uh an issue that you all are are actively trying to work on. Uh I'm curious uh how the implementation, I know that there are existing cameras already. I'm curious how things have gone, and I know some of this was you know before your administration as well, but like what impacts have cameras in the bus lanes had, and what plans do you have kind of moving forward with enforcement in the bus lanes?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Sure. You know, and and you brought up earlier how one of the themes in the plan is this idea of a culture of courtesy and respect. And I think you know, the reason that we talk about it in that way is because we really do see it as part of a larger um uh challenge or opportunity in New York City to really just um bring civility and order uh to our streets and respect and safety across the board. Bus lanes are one part of it. You also mentioned bike lanes, it could be other things like you know, blocking loading zones, double parking, things like that. Um, things where it adds up across the city and has a real impact. So, you know, specifically with the bus lane enforcement, we have two kinds, right? We have uh bus-mounted cameras that are on the buses, and then we have pole-mounted stationary cameras. We've seen really significant uh speed improvements in many cases, up to 30% on routes where we've uh added bus lane enforcement. Interestingly, we've also seen safety benefits from this. I think that's coming from the reduction in double parking, which is also thereby, you know, reducing kind of like jockeying and and weaving around, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Double parking the bus has got to now weave into traffic and all, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah. So it's a really important part of the plan. Like you can design it as great as you can, and a lot of our future bus rapid transit quarters will have physical protection of the bus lanes, but not every street can have that because of the width or other things. Um, and so enforcement is a key piece, and automated enforcement can be a great tool. It's it's relatively um less expensive, uh, it just is, you know, easier to roll out. Um, but there is a role for targeted manual enforcement, especially of some of these real hot spots uh where we just see recurring issues of um of non-compliance, of folks blocking the bus lanes or things like that, or blocking the box, what we call blocking the intersection, in other words, when you have the red light, so the other street can't go. That's another way that buses could get stuck. So that's another key piece of the plan.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Totally. And I I also think like having people actually on the ground uh to kind of go in and enforce those things to a certain degree if it's a hotspot can also be like an education piece, too, even. So I feel like yeah, I mean that makes sense. That's a great point. Yeah.

Shelters, Shade, Signs, Accessibility

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Um, so uh in this bus action plan, you're also currently calling for 300 new bus shelters, planting more trees near bus stops, uh, 90 new real-time arrival signs in 2026. And this number was a lot, so I can include it in here. 2,900 by 2030. That's a lot of uh a lot of real-time arrival signs, although it makes sense that I the number of bus stops in the city is probably insane. Uh can you kind of talk about around 11,000 bus stops? All right, wow. Um can you kind of talk about some of these things that don't necessarily like help get people directly from A to B, but but make it like a more dignified experience uh along with it. So it's not just about increasing the speeds, but it's also like uh benefiting the experience, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Absolutely. You know, I would start by saying that I think like we as humans, like out in our cities and our infrastructure, we can feel whether we're cared for or not, right? Are we a priority in the uh scheme of things? And we can feel when we're not, right? And so I think all these improvements, they really are about taking care of bus riders, making it a world-class experience, a dignified experience. That's the baseline, but I think there's also a very practical reason, and studies have shown this, right? That when you have a more comfortable waiting experience, the wait doesn't feel as long, right? If you know, if you have some idea of when the bus is coming, if you're not standing out in the blazing sun, um, if you have a place to sit, especially, you know, maybe you're you're an old older adult or have have a disability or for whatever reason have just had a long day on your feet. Um, all these things are a way of taking care of riders, number one, but also uh just just making it um feel like a uh uh more comfortable and world-class experience and making the weight feel faster. It will be faster too, right? That's part of the plan. But we also want it to feel faster. So most fundamentally, we're gonna um make all bus stops accessible over time, fully accessible. Uh we're gonna add seating, like you said, add hundreds of uh bus stops every year, almost 900. Um, we're adding the real-time bus arrival info at 90 this year, but like you said, that's gonna scale up to almost 3,000. Uh, and we're looking at things like uh comfort, right? With climate change and with the heat waves we've seen, um, while we're only doing 30 trees to start with, it's really a down payment. We're also looking, we're piloting things like green roofs. But basically, how do we make the bus stops comfortable across all dimensions, including things like extreme heat?

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah, I mean, uh, as someone who was living in Austin, Texas before this and and used uh used the bus there quite a bit, I I can say like, I mean, when you had a bus stop that didn't, and there were plenty of bus stops that didn't have a shelter there, unfortunately. But um, and I mean they're that's something they're working on too. But uh, you know, when you have even just a tree, like you don't even need a shelter or anything. If there's a tree nearby, it can be a lifesaver for it standing there while it's 9,500 degrees outside, um, or you know, in the in the rain, in the snow, in the wind, um, you know, something to to be able to to you know take some shelter from. I always think about this too, in the sense of like, I I want public transit to be something that like I'd feel comfortable with my mom going and using on her own or something like that. And like unfortunately, in so many places that's that's not the case. So I I appreciate that that this was included in the plan here. Having the accessibility for everyone at all stages of life is such an important piece of the puzzle, I think.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So absolutely. Yeah, the thing you mentioned about the shade, it makes me think of, you know, um um uh William H. White, right, who did those early studies on how people use public space. And I think about the bus stop in my neighborhood. It's uh it's it's a not a heavily used stop. It doesn't have a shelter, but it has trees. And yeah, on a hot day, folks, everyone standing, right? You know, they're all standing there in the shade. And it's like that's that's human nature. So whatever we can do is gonna help.

Defining World-Class Bus Rapid Transit

SPEAKER_02 20:15

I want to move on a little bit to uh kind of the the more exciting, not not exciting, the the sexier pieces of it. I said buses aren't sexy, I'm gonna take it back for the this this section. So in the the bus action plan, uh you mention world-class rapid bus routes. Um, can you talk about what a world-class rapid bus route is to you, or maybe share some examples of what that might be, whether it already be something in New York or something else around the world that you kind of might be modeling towards?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Sure. And and and just to be clear, you know, what we're moving towards is what is called bus rapid transit, right? And what we've seen uh in some of our peer cities around the world. Um we're starting from a great program that was launched, boy, almost 20 years ago now, in New York called Select Bus Service, uh, which was kind of our initial foray towards um towards a bus rapid transit-like system, towards you know, real bus priority. And and that was a great program. Uh, and so we're building on it, basically, right? With the what that had was you paid your fare before boarding, so that all you needed was your receipt, you got on. Um, the the select bus service routes typically had bus lanes and other things that sped them along. Uh, so we're looking to take it to the next level. We're look we're looking to learn from some of those best-in-class BRT systems around the world, whether it's Bogota uh or other other cities. What we do need to do though is we need to adapt it to New York City, right? Uh, if I think about Transmillenio in Bogota, most of their routes are on these massive either highway medians or giant arterial streets. We don't have a lot of them in New York City just because of the way our city was built. So we have to figure out how do we adapt BR. To the conditions on the ground here in New York. And, you know, for example, we may have a big, wide arterial, but it may not be where we actually see the demand. So it's like we have to balance these things. So when we look at taking it to that next level with these rapid bus BRT corridors, it's uh things like actual physical protection of the bus lanes. It's things like raised, you know, semi-level boarding islands that make it much more seamless for folks to get on and off the buses. Um it's frequent all-day bus service, it's bigger bus shelters and bus station experience that's more like a rapid transit station experience, right? With uh, like I said, larger shelters, more seating, but also other kinds of amenities for passengers. Maybe it's wayfinding signage, maybe it's more like public space amenities. We've seen that in uh global BRT systems. So it's almost like this neighborhood hub that that um is more than just a bus stop, but really a station and a place of uh in its own right. So I think those are a few of the aspects that are gonna take us from where we are today to these BRT corridors.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah, absolutely. And uh I kind of want to talk about one of them in particular.

Flatbush Avenue BRT Timeline Update

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Uh so just to try to get myself up to speed, I want to give them credit here for it, so I'll get their name right. I watched a YouTube video by uh Urban Life New York City, who gave kind of some construction updates on the Flatbush Avenue redesign. Um, and I know that the first phase of that uh is currently under construction right now. Uh in the video, they mentioned that the B-41 buses right now uh at off-peak hours are running just at six miles an hour average, and at peak they were at four miles per hour, which of course is something that you all are trying to improve with these plans. Makes a lot of sense that this corridor uh was chosen for it. Uh right now it's just under a mile of BRT under construction on Flatbush Avenue. Uh phase two would encompass an additional eight miles or so. Um I know that phase one, I mean, I'll let you kind of get into the some of the specifics of it, but it looks like that as you're describing center-running BRT. Um, phase two, I think, is still kind of in the planning phase here. I'm curious to kind of get an update of where things are on uh on that BRT corridor in particular.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Sure. Yeah, so phase one is the northernmost, really, um uh downtown Brooklyn, basically. Uh, and it's a it's a key section because you do see a good amount of traffic there and the buses are stuck in it today uh or uh prior to us implementing this. Uh construction's pretty far along. In fact, we were just out there with the mayor a couple days ago uh with our crews who are building it, doing a great job. Uh and uh yeah, it's it's center running, it has the islands. These ones are not uh really raised yet, but we'll be looking at that in the later phases. We're building our internal capacity to uh it's basically a new tool for us to do through our in-house construction. Uh and then the later phases are as you go down through Brooklyn all the way down, really, to the south end of Brooklyn. Uh and Flatbush Avenue, the the physical sort of design of it changes, the geometry changes as you go. So it may not look exactly the same. We're we're starting visioning and engagement with those communities this year. Uh, and so yeah, we're we're basically in the planning stages of those later phases. But uh we have set a goal to have it all complete and in the ground by 2030. We're gonna see, you know, what else we can do to speed it up even more, but uh, but that's that's our starting point. Um and uh yeah, happy to talk about more of the details. But basically, phase one will be done construction this year. We're starting planning and visioning and community community conversations for the later phases this year, uh, with it all uh to be done by 2030.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Awesome. Yeah, no, I mean it it seems like a again from afar, it seems like a corridor that makes sense and it was uh interesting. I was spending some time looking at the at the corridor and then the information that was out so far. So, and I was curious about, you know, it does get narrower in sections. Um, but it feels like, and correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, if you do a mixture of, hey, you've got center running where you can, but then maybe you have just a a dedicated lane in some other spots and you still factor these things in with uh signal priority and whatnot, you can still have a really successful system there. Um, as long as, as you were kind of saying earlier on in the conversation, like those specific pain points are taken care of where the backups would happen kind of as you're going through the process.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Yeah, it's not a one size fits all for sure, right? Like we want to work with the community, we need to balance different considerations. There's a lot of mom and pop businesses along different sections of Flatbush Ave. So, how do we balance their access and loading needs with the bus priorities? Yeah, so so the solution could be bus lanes, it could be uh center running, it could be a bus way, uh where you know there's traffic's allowed on the street, but has to turn. We don't know yet what the right answers are. We want to sit down with the community and hear their vision, hear their concerns, but also let our planners and engineers really crunch the numbers and figure out what's gonna work best.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Awesome.

How Advocates Can Move The Needle

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Uh one last question for you. Uh, I'm curious, you know, in your role today, and I know you've worked in the industry for a long time, for folks who are watching who are, you know, they're an advocate in their community and they're wanting to get involved and to try to influence, you know, people who are in your seat in cities across the country, uh, what advice might you have for them to try to make an impact and to improve transit in their communities?

SPEAKER_00 27:41

That's a great question. I mean, I think um really getting involved with uh at the community level can be very powerful. Um I think you know at the end of the day, the goal of these programs is to actually impact and benefit people's lives, right? And uh the best way to go about that is to actually have that groundswell from the users. I think transit riders as a constituency historically have been harder to organize. Uh and um, you know, and like a lot of things in life, the people who benefit from a broad policy don't always come out, but the maybe smaller group or louder voices or special interests who feel like maybe they're gonna be inconvenienced, you hear from them, right? Oh, yeah. I always say the status quo has trade-offs. So my a piece of advice, other than really just like getting out there, being curious, learning as much as you can, becoming conversant in the issues, in the uh ideas, is to um to really plug in with your community and with the different groups that are out there and and you know try to uh uh build that build that groundswell.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Awesome. Well, uh Commissioner Flynn, thank you so much for taking the time. We were very excited to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Well, thanks for all your work, Lewis. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Again,

Links, Free Bus Question, Closing

SPEAKER_02 29:03

a huge thank you to Commissioner Flynn for taking the time to chat with me. It's amazing to be able to talk to somebody who is at uh that level of uh running an enormous department of transportation. One thing that I did not ask about, and it was intentional, was the plan for free buses as well for a couple of reasons. One is that is more MTA than uh Department of Transportation, which is uh in the in the city department there. But also Mayor Mamdanny was asked directly about that himself. So I'll put a link below uh if you're curious to hear his answer directly on his plans to make buses free as well. If you're looking for a conversation on that, Chris and I had a discussion about free buses and the pros and cons of it uh back a couple months ago. There'll be a link down in the description. If you have not liked this video already, please consider doing so. It helps get the shout out to new people. Subscribe. You can also support the show directly via our Patreon, becoming a YouTube member, uh, all of that good stuff. If you've got questions or thoughts or ideas for Commissioner Flynn, um, feel free to leave them in the comments. We'll make sure that we send a note over uh to see if we can get some answers on them. And maybe we'll be able to have the commissioner or someone else on his team back on the show again in the future. But with all that being said, thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your transit tangents Tuesday.