Manhattan-Sized Parking Lot Needed If NYers Drove

Flickr user th.omas

If city residents drove as often as the rest of America (or, let's face it, if as many of them had drivers licenses), we'd need a 25 sq. mile parking lot to fit all the cars. According to a new city commissioned study, there would be 4.5 million more cars clogging up rush hour traffic if New Yorkers drove the same amount as folks in other metropolitan centers. Well, maybe it's high time we put that giant useless space in the middle of Manhattan to good use?

The study concludes that public transportation and pedestrian friendly construction helps the city's environment and the economy, but it also has a lot of fun facts that we can shove in other cities' faces! For instance:

New Yorkers drive an average of 9 miles a day, while in other large, metropolitan areas the average is 25 miles.
City residents save $19 million a year by not buying cars or spending money on gas, and instead spend that money locally, boosting the economy.
57% of New Yorkers take the subway or bus to work, while 32% take cars (their own or cabs), 10% walk and 1.2% bike.

Nobody could figure out how the 10% of New Yorkers who are unemployed get anywhere.

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By Jaya Saxena in News on April 20, 2010 1:53 PM

Comments [rss]

Såkandulæredet

It says New Yorkers drive an average 9 miles a day, I assume that's the 5 boroughs, I'd be interested in seeing what the Manhattan average is.

jaycjay

"City residents save $19 million a year by not buying cars or spending money on gas, and instead spend that money locally, boosting the economy"

Two questions:

The city's population is about 8.3 million, so lets say about half of them are old enough to drive, 4 million. How would the average NYC driver spend over $2 million a year on buying a car and gas?

And secondly, if they did... wouldn't they be as likely to buy their cars and gas locally as they would antything else? They only drive 9 miles a day, how are they not buying their gas locally?

jaycjay

The linked article actually says $19 billion (or more accurately, "$19billion"), not million:

"Residents of the five boroughs save $19billion a year because they buy fewer cars and avoid many auto-related expenses such as gasoline and car insurance.

Sorry, even throwing in insurance and whatever other auto-related expenses could be included, I don't believe that at all.

Jason B

Say insurance is $1000 per year, gas is $1000 per year, and the amortized price of a car is $3000 per year. So 4 million residents saving $5000 per year would be a $20 billion savings. That figure doesn't seem too unreasonable.

Of course many of those 4 million actually do have cars and drive, and the ones who don't drive pay $1000 a year for transit. So maybe a more believable figure is $10 billion. Still not bad.

Mordicai

You mean, instead of Manhattan streets being a parking lot for out of towners to clog up?

Stevennnn

It helps the New York City area has one of the best transportation networks in the country with the buses/subways/NJ Transit, Metro-North, LIRR.

xgeyiph772

The grammar police needs to get out of they're houses now and then and get off they're computers. You all are getting bitterer all the tyme ;)

OhMy

Perhaps, but look how much better the headline is now. Vast improvement.

OhMy

Okay, and now change it to: If NYers drove, Manhattan Would Need to Be Parking Lot. (Or even add in the "a" while we're at it!)

FakeHipster

I SAW THAT

OhMy

I was so confused by this headline until I realized it was a typo.

TrippinJoJo

PLEASE WRITE YOUR ARTICLES IN A WORD PROCESSOR PROGRAM WHERE THEY CORRECT YOUR SPELLING AND GRAMMAR.

PLEASE. Why are you rushing to post your articles? Trying to catch a train or something??

Oh wait....it's 4/20 i get it now....