> Do NYC residents look at the subway as something only poor people use?
No, but subway funding and management is controlled by the state, not the city -- and the majority of residents of the state do not use transit. I get the impression that a lot of people in the state still think of NYC as the crumbling inner city of the 70's: the place where poor people live.
The governor is more interested in optics ("Now you can charge your phone on the bus! We replaced the tiles in this subway station!") than restoring service, let alone expansion. He has diverted funds from the subways to, among other things, pretty light shows on bridges and supporting failing upstate ski resorts. With the subways failing, those who can afford to are taking cabs and black cars more and more, which contributes to the traffic congestion crisis.
The mayor gets driven everywhere in a black SUV and seems to have never learned that not only to most of his constituents not commute in personal vehicles, the majority don't even own cars.
Additionally, the city has a LOT of public buses. In some ways (frequency, coverage), bus service in the city is much better than most of the rest of the country. In other ways, it's unusably bad (mostly, time to get from A to B due to traffic, too-frequent stops, silly winding routes, slow payment/boarding, overcrowding, inufficiently frequent service outside rush hour, bus bunching decreasing apparent/useful service frequency).
The NIMBYs and traffic enforcers all seem to believe that bus riders are "not us" (and yes, outside of a few crosstown corridors, bus riders average poorer than subway riders). The result is obstacles to the creation of bus lanes and busways, and utter lack of enforcement of those we do have.