Most New Yorkers don’t bother with owning a car as the city is well served by an extensive and efficient public transport system that operates almost round the clock on every day of the week. Moreover the streets of New York City, especially on the island of Manhattan, are extremely congested and crowded with delivery trucks, public buses, town cars, and taxis in addition to private cars.
Owning and maintain a car in Manhattan can be quite expensive as street parking is quite impossible to find and even if you do find street parking you have to move around your car often in order to comply with the alternate side parking rules that operate in the city. Moreover parking your car in a parking lot or garage can cost more than $500 a month and if you are foreigner in the city who doesn’t have an established driving record in the USA you can expect to pay higher car insurance premiums as well. If you happen to reside in one of the outer boroughs like Brooklyn or Queens then perhaps you will not incur the parking costs that you would have to pay in Manhattan because the outer boroughs have more space where street parking is a bit easier.
However when the need for a car arises most New Yorkers tend to rent a car from one of the many rental agencies which are scattered throughout the city.
Personal drivers and chauffeurs are not very common in New York City except with the very affluent and most ordinary New Yorkers manage very well with the city’s fleet of yellow taxi cabs and town cars acting as their “personal drivers”, as well as the other different forms of public transportation which are readily available almost round the clock in New York City.
