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An obvious counterexample to "people who can afford cars will use them" would be, say, the Tokyo metropolitan area, where an overwhelming majority of commuters of every income level use mass transit. The Tokyo metro area has 37 million people and only about 3 million registered cars.

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IIRC you can’t buy cars in Japan unless you have a certificate proving that you have a parking space for it. So owning a car for lots of people in Tokyo is borderline impossible.

If you look at Seoul, with similar density and public transit system but without a similar regulation for car ownership, you’ll find that the rate of car registration dramatically increases.

The Netherlands has 1.5x the density of Japan yet has more cars than households because they are relatively affordable. People wouldn't have as much cars as we do now if they weren't affordable.

I have a car that I seldomly use, but it's cheap and comes in handy for trips where public transit doesn't work out. I probably would sell it if it became unaffordable. Right now it costs me around 3% of my monthly wage to keep around.

You're asking the wrong question.

Tokyo is full of people who are happy to use public transport. People who are not generally don't live there.

Car enthusiasts rarely live in Central London either.

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