I live 70 miles from NYC in a rural area. People used to go there for the day, especially to see a show. That is not happening anymore. People know it’s unsafe there, thanks to the mayor. Hope our local bus company can survive. They used to run busses to NYC all day.
I live a dozen miles west of Manhattan, and few people travel there at all anymore (many of the workers hadn’t even returned to the NYC offices yet, and with this mandate I suspect many never will). The city has been bleeding jobs for decades, and this is probably the last nail in the coffin of the financial sector there. After 9/11 many of those companies had to have backup sites x miles away from NYC and rather than maintain two sites, many just moved most of the jobs out and kept a PO box in NYC.
When libs were pushing for a third tunnel connecting NYC to NJ for several years, opponents pointed out that the number of commuters had fallen so much that it was unnecessary. Proponents were reduced to pushing for the tunnel SO PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO SEE A BROADWAY SHOW COULD DO SO MORE EASILY. This conversation was re-started recently, EVEN WHILE BROADWAY IS BASICALLY CLOSED.