LOL people on the thread whining about MTA efficiency. Individual personal care are insanely inefficient, double when you consider all the roads and parking required.
I gave up my car when moving to Manhattan and now subway, walk and bike everywhere. It's a dream and saves $5000+ per year including capital cost, maintenance, gas, tolls, parking, insurance, repairs, cleaning, traffic tickets. As a society there's another $N000/year saved on the marginal cost of another car: road maintenance, traffic cops, people sitting in traffic instead of living their lives, etc.
Robotaxis change a bunch of this math: utilization shoots up and drives down cost per user, and people can live/work (on their cellphones) while being passengers.
In NYC, people with $10M+ ride mass transit and want to see it funded but unfortunately, the cost is too high to simply increase taxes on the wealthy.
To address your concern, Uber drivers and construction workers will pass their increased costs onto their lower Manhattan customers, just like they do for their time sitting in traffic, tolls, parking, traffic and parking tickets, meals, insurance, etc. Simple repairs in lower Manhattan can be hundreds of dollars. Already, for cost, time and traffic reasons, commuters of all types batch their Manhattan trips. Congestion pricing is once per day and therefore a nominal percentage in top of everything else.
I gave up my car when moving to Manhattan and now subway, walk and bike everywhere. It's a dream and saves $5000+ per year including capital cost, maintenance, gas, tolls, parking, insurance, repairs, cleaning, traffic tickets. As a society there's another $N000/year saved on the marginal cost of another car: road maintenance, traffic cops, people sitting in traffic instead of living their lives, etc.
Robotaxis change a bunch of this math: utilization shoots up and drives down cost per user, and people can live/work (on their cellphones) while being passengers.