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The Last Days of the Mayor’s Race, Aboard a Bronx Bus
People wait for a bus in the New York City borough of Queens on August 29, 2016. (Spencer Platt via Getty Images)
‘You know how they are,’ says a rider on the Bx18, which Mamdani helped make free for a year. ‘They promise you the world, and then they take it away.’
By Olivia Reingold
10.29.25 — New York
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THE BRONX — Rain or shine, this is where Raymond often ends up: at the top of East 170th Street, waiting for the Bx18 bus.

“Sometimes I walk home,” he told me, peering over a pair of silver sunglasses. “But today, I’m so tired I’m going to take it.”

In New York City, where 332 bus lines crisscross the five boroughs—shuttling riders across bridges, through Central Park, around Times Square, and almost everywhere—the Bx18 is one of the most isolated in the city. It is also the one that Raymond, a 53-year-old lifelong Bronxite, takes most days to run errands and to visit his ailing mother.

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Olivia Reingold
Olivia Reingold is a staff writer at The Free Press. She co-created and executive produced Matthew Yglesias’s podcast, Bad Takes. She got her start in public radio, regularly appearing on NPR for her reporting on indigenous communities in Montana. She previously produced podcasts at Politico, where she shaped conversations with world leaders like Jens Stoltenberg.
Tags:
Andrew Cuomo
New York City Mayoral Race
Zohran Mamdani
Socialism
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