Fewer New Yorkers are hailing cabs for their commutes to work, and more are flocking to subway, bikes and ferries, according to a new city analysis of commutes.
Taxi trips to work plunged 26.5 percent between 2006 and 2012 — dropping to 37,219 commuters who regularly use cabs to go to work, according to an analysis of census data by the Economic Development Corporation.
Manhattan cab commutes dropped from 34,211 in Manhattan to 25,081 in 2012, census data shows.
Staten Island saw the sharpest plunge, from 326 in 2006 to a puny 19 in 2012.
Bhairavi Desai, head of the Taxi Workers Alliance, said the drop may have come from Manhattanites moving out to New Jersey and Connecticut, due to the economic downturn. “A lot of people are moving out of Manhattan,” she said.
Simultaneously, more workers are swiping their MetroCards to get to work, with subway ridership climbing 16 percent to 1.6 million in 2012.
Two-wheel commutes are also more popular.
The number of cyclists pedaling to their 9-to-5s jumped an average of almost 11 percent a year between 2006 and 2012.
Brooklyn saw the biggest spike, with the number of biking commuters jumping more than 135 percent to 16,915 in 2012.
The Lower East Side and Chinatown had the highest number of two-wheel commuters when broken down by neighborhood, followed by Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and Red Hook.
But even in car-friendly Staten Island, the number of residents pedaling more than doubled from 97 in 2006 to 220 in 2012.
Ferry commutes also rose 9 percent between 2006 and 2012 and are expected to become more popular with the new Rockaway Ferry to Wall Street.
The East River Ferry, which has helped revitalize the city’s waterfront neighborhoods, has also surged in popularity.
It had 1.2 million riders total riders in 2013, compared with almost 930,000 after it first launched in 2011. “New York is a water town,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “The harbor is making a huge comeback.”