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If You Choose to Commute by Car in NYC: Why?

If you have a hot ride, take it?

If you live in Queens but drive a truck into Manhattan for work, we get it. It's probably a necessity. And if the congestion pricing plan commissioned by Governor Andrew Cuomo went into effect, your company would be hit with the proposed $25.34 charge for driving in the city below 60th Street.

But the city's Department of Transportation told WNYC that 12 percent of commuters take a car or carpool into Manhattan, and if you're someone who chooses to do that, rather than take public transit, we want to know why.

Would the congestion pricing plan, which would charge cars $11.52, change your calculation? What if you couldn't drive through certain suburban towns without paying a huge fee, as is now the case in Leonia, New Jersey?

On Facebook, a commuter named Jessica Murphy told WNYC that her husband drives from Long Island to downtown Manhattan because he likes to smoke in the car. Plus, his employer provides free parking, and he works a late shift. "If he misses his LIRR train," she said, "it can be over an hour til the next one in the middle of the night." 

For Deborah Shapiro, who lives on the Upper West Side but works at hospitals in Brooklyn and Queens, it's more complicated. She told WNYC she doesn't like the idea of driving -- it's unsustainable, it adds to congestion and air pollution -- but she had foot and ankle surgery last year, and taking public transit is now too challenging.

"All other things being equal, I really would prefer to take the train, because in theory, it's convenient," she said. "In practice, I find it very very difficult physically."

Shapiro said this experience has, among other things, revealed just how tough the city's public transit system is for people with physical disabilities. One way to improve accessibility: raise money for the subway.