> You don't have a great read on how many people actually get around.
I'm reading the numbers direct from my local bus authority. I'm sure transit ridership in Manhattan is higher (since they actually have a real subway system and such). But of course, most Americans don't have any access to LRT / subways, so...
> You're making the typical false claim that rich people can afford to not drive and poor people are dependent on cars.
Because it's mostly true? Especially for all the Americans who don't live in Manhattan, the literal wealthiest place in the nation.
I know this is going to sound odd, but most Americans don't live in NYC. Hell, most NY metro residents themselves don't even live in NYC (only about ~43% of them do, according to the census estimates)
Approximately 8.6% of US households do not own a single car, as of 2017. Only 76.4% of commuters commute via single-occupancy vehicles; another 8.9% commute via carpool. These statistics are nationwide. Your claim that "95% of Americans truly can't live without a car" is contradicted by the fact that more than 5% do not own a car in the first place.
It's true that living in, say, Rantoul, Illinois is going to be difficult without a car. But the list of cities that have at least some form of bus service does go down to some pretty small cities (<100,000), and most of the country anyways lives in large cities or their suburbs, where transit is viable.
You were talking about all Americans, and now you're talking about just your one city. Your one city isn't representative of all of America.
How are you defining wealthiest place in the nation? There are many cities with much higher median incomes than Manhattan. The median income of Palo Alto, for example, is $137,000/yr, which is about double Manhattan's. And there's plenty more cities like Palo Alto across the country with high congregations of wealth. And Manhattan, of course, isn't a city in its own right; the median income across all of NYC is only $50k/yr. Manhattan is much more diverse class-wise than you seem to realize. I think you're conflating all of Manhattan with just a few of the most tony neighborhoods. Here's another source; no county in NYC comes close to the list of top-earning counties in the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_countie...
Please, show some figures supporting your claims about Manhattan.
And it's literally not true that rich people tend to drive the most and poor people the least. Here's a source (one of many) on that: https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/PovertyBrief.pdf Here's a quote from the abstract: "Households in poverty are limited to a shorter radius of travel compared to higher income households. They have the lowest
rates of single occupancy vehicle use and the highest usage of less costly travel modes: carpool, transit, bike and walk. Households in poverty have lower vehicle ownership rates, which has led to an increased use of alternative modes of
transportation and higher vehicle occupancy rates."
I'm reading the numbers direct from my local bus authority. I'm sure transit ridership in Manhattan is higher (since they actually have a real subway system and such). But of course, most Americans don't have any access to LRT / subways, so...
> You're making the typical false claim that rich people can afford to not drive and poor people are dependent on cars.
Because it's mostly true? Especially for all the Americans who don't live in Manhattan, the literal wealthiest place in the nation.
I know this is going to sound odd, but most Americans don't live in NYC. Hell, most NY metro residents themselves don't even live in NYC (only about ~43% of them do, according to the census estimates)