Author: Cara Buckley and Annick Sjobakken
Published on: 18/11/2025 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
Climate|Iowa City Made Its Buses Free. You have been granted access, use your keyboard to continue reading. Ridership jumped, people cut back on driving and, over the summer, the city extended the program another year. Iowa City eliminated bus fares in August 2023 with a goal of lowering emissions from cars and encouraging people to take public transit. Free city buses are relatively rare in the United States. The idea has been getting a new look recently, after Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral race with a promise to make buses free. But critics have described the plan as pie in the sky. Iowa City wanted to replace 55 percent of vehicle trips with sustainable alternatives like walking, biking and taking transit by 2050. In 2021, Iowa City started running more buses, streamlining routes and seriously considering waiving the $1 fares. Ridership eventually grew to 118 percent of prepandemic levels, compared to average nationally transit ridership-recovery levels of 85 percent. Justin Jones has been driving city buses for Iowa City for 15 years. Then he climbed into the No. 10 bus, crossing the Iowa River, and set off. A few minutes later, Abbas Mahadi, 20, climbed aboard, holding the hand of his 6-year-old cousin. The Trump administration proposed to significantly limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit pollution in wetlands, rivers and other bodies of water across the country. Demand for power is growing fast, but hydro plants are struggling because of droughts, floods and other extreme weather linked to climate change. The Trump administration announced that oil and gas drilling would be allowed in a fragile expanse of tundra.
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