tableclothcape replied to your post: For next question time, do you think Amazon...
came here for “Higher share of highly-paid New Yorkers drive to work than most people like to pretend” and was not disappointed, thank u
Let’s put some numbers on this from the 2012-2016 American Community Survey! The top income bracket for means of transportation to work in the ACS is $75,000+, which is fine everywhere except New York, but it’s still illustrative:
In Queens borough, 40% of workers in that top income bracket drive alone to work while 48% take public transit. (The remainder mostly walk, bike, or work from home.) So in the densely built-up city proper there’s actually pretty close competition between driving alone and taking transit.
In Nassau County (the close-in part of Long Island right next to Queens) 67% of that top income bracket drive alone to work while 23% take public transit. This part of Long Island has heavy LIRR coverage (including trains that go straight to the new Amazon offices) but a relatively small transit share.
In Suffolk County (the fancier further-out part of Long Island where a really highly-paid tech worker might be more likely to live) 78% of the top income bracket drive alone to work while 11% take public transit.
Transit shares in the New York metro area overall have risen a bit since the 1990s (this is basically the only large metro area for which this is true, incidentally) but at the top of the income distribution it’s reasonable to assume that most people are going to be driving to work even in New York. I’d imagine the new headquarters is going to have a ton of parking and probably also some traffic realignments to facilitate the commute. Jeff Bezos is going to get a special exemption for his helipad, also, but that’s basically par for the course in a cyberpunk dystopia.