NEW YORK — If you ask people in the Bronx what they think about making the bus free, you get a lot of versions of yes .

"Why not? Yes, it definitely should," said Melanie Marrero as she waited for the Bx18 bus with her two young children. "Because, as you see, it's like almost three dollars, and it's going to go up."

Today the bus costs $2.90 per ride for adults. For a while last year, this bus line was free for everyone — thanks to a temporary pilot program supported by an obscure state assemblyman from Queens named Zohran Mamdani, who made it part of his dark-horse candidacy for mayor.

"As mayor, I'll make every bus fast and free," Mamdani pledged in this video . That message helped propel him to a resounding win in the Democratic primary with a campaign focused on affordability,

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