If all the rail in Philly disappeared over night, it would be bad but the city wouldn't collapse. NYC would just collapse. You can't have that kind of population density (both resident and daytime) without a high capacity mass transit system. There is no room for
all the cars.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, after declaring the subway to be in a state of emergency, promised that a rescue plan by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would deliver results. The authority’s chairman, Joseph J. Lhota, said subway riders would see improvements “relatively quickly.”
But one year later, subway service remains in many ways the same — dismal.