Indeed. I'm a west coast resident, and I've only visited NYC a handful of times, but last time I was there with my family, I rode cabs about as much as subway:

Indeed. I'm a west coast resident, and I've only visited NYC a handful of times, but last time I was there with my family, I rode cabs about as much as subway: in my limited experience, subway in Manhattan works well if you're moving on north-south axis, but not so well on east-west axis. When you're going east-west in Manhattan, you have to spend 15-20 minutes walking more often than not, which is usually not that bad, unless it's 95 degrees outside, and your children are miserable: spending 20 minutes in air conditioned cab then is much preferrable to spending 15 minutes walking in that circumstance. In that scenario, cabs also win often with subway, especially on short routes, since you can move 4 people with a single cab fare, while you have to pay 4 times the fare when you take the subway.