Last August, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio took time out of a COVID-19 press conference to send a direct message to city residents.
“My advice to New Yorkers is, ‘Do not buy a car,’” de Blasio said. “Cars are the past.”
By that point in 2020, New York state had processed 18% more new car registrations in the city than the summer before, according to the New York Times. In all of 2020, the New York metro area saw nearly 900,000 new cars registered, according to data from IHS Markit. As of May 2021, there were another 437,548 registered, nearly 7.5% of the nation’s total new car registrations this year.
+INFO: SmartCitiesDive