Why people in (south-of-110th) Manhattan bother to own cars is beyond me. That said, the outer boroughs are (a) a long distance, in public-transit time, from the centre and (b) relatively unconnected by mass transit to the rest of Long Island and New Jersey (and to a lesser degree, Connecticut).

As a Manhattanite who prefers cars (i.e. Ubers, Junos, et cetera), it comes down to a few factors. One, cars are door to door. Two, cars are air conditioned/heated. And Three, I can take calls (and naps) in cars.

There are many people who find cars a better choice: models who don't like getting their feet dirty so won't do the first two. Real estate agents who often have to pick clients up at airports or take them to NJ or Long Island. People who live in NJ and work in NYC to save money and can time their car commute to avoid bridge traffic, so cars are quicker than hours on buses or transferring to the PATH, etc.. I dated the first two and was the last for many years.

The subway doesn't go everywhere, and NYC is so big that mass transit can take longer to get to places than to drive. Driving in NYC really isn't that bad as long as you don't drive mostly in midtown. 75% of the rest of the city is perfectly drivable.

Secondly, the concentration of wealth/population is so high that even if a small minority of people drive, it still causes lots of congestion.

I don't live in NYC, but I can tell you why I drive a car in a city -

1) I used to bike for years while I was at uni. It's dangerous, and not very enjoyable in a city. It's ok on a nice spring/autumn day, but in sweltering sun or in winter or in pouring rain it's downright miserable.

2) subway - nope, because I hate being packed so close to other people. It's frequently smelly and unpleasant. Same with buses.

3) taxi - expensive, and I don't like being driven around by other people, would much rather drive my own car.

On the other hand, yes, driving somewhere is usually slower. But....I sit in my own clean environment, listening to podcasts or audiobooks, at the temperature that is fully controlled by me.

No.

1. NYC is _BIG_. It's 304 square miles, which is about 17 by 17 miles. There are many places where biking is too far.

2. Subways, in contrast to popular opinion, don't go everywhere. Mainly, unless you live in Manhattan, or that's the only place where you want to go, the Subway system is quite lousy. Going from the airport to Coney Island takes an hour and a half by subway (according to Google), rather than half an hour by car. Now what happens if you have what to do in Queens, Far Rockaway, or NJ?

3. Expensive and no point. Due to #2, most NYers have to have a car, if at least for those off days when they want to leave the city or what. Once you have the car, driving it is much cheaper than taxi.

I'm curious about this too. In SF it can make sense to have a car even just for travel within the city because public transit to/from certain areas can take forever compared to cars.

I was just dragging points around between random places on Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the difference in transit times between cars and public transit seemed pretty minimal almost everywhere I dragged the points to. In SF, there are certain well served areas where that is also the case.. but if you want to cut west from, say, Dogpatch to the Castro, it can take 2x-4x longer by public transit.

Well taxis are cars. Also a lot of traffic in Manhattan is commercial traffic - delivery trucks, contractors, ambulances, police cars. Those all pretty require cars.

i think a lot of them don't. but there's so many people in the region that even if a lot of people don't use cars, there's still a ton of cars.

I think a majority of the motor vehicles are taxis, buses, private car services, and what does the most damage per vehicle - commercial vehicles. Box trucks take a much greater toll on roads than a bunch of average passenger cars.

Have you ever taken the NY subway ? I have (but not in any recent history) and I remember it not being a very pleasant experience. But it may have changed.