Well I for one WOULD consider bugging out of NYC if I thought bugging out was the way to go....bugging in as we all know on this forum quite possibly the smartest thing to do. But back to getting out of Dodge if one had to. Consider a sea kayak! OK, I've been paddling 25 years and though not a master (is anyone truly a master of anything?) I am confident enough to escape NYC via the ocean route. Of course if it was a hurricaine one might wait a bit eh.
I remember reading a story about some Germans who lived in northern Germany during WWII...they wanted out...and the only way to pass easily without border guards was the sea. So they build their own skin-on-frame kayaks (out of readily available materials) and paddled to freedom at night.
Our own military trains in very stealthy kayaks-evidently great to sneek up on an adversary (same quietness that helped the Inuit hunt kinda thing).
So maybe this is not for you but for some trapped in big cities that are on bodies of water a canoe or kayak may be an alternative method of circumnavigating (no pun intended) the masses.
Once I had an intern off to Memphis for graduate studies. She agreed an obtained a kayak, stocked it like you would a BOB and found a place adjacent to the Miss. River....if something big goes down you can imagine trying to get out of Memphis or any other big city for that matter via the Interstate system...the rivers may just be the way to go.