Yes, reckless scooter riders/bikers exist, but so do reckless drivers. And if all those reckless drivers were instead reckless scooter riders, we'd save ~40 thousand American lives per year.

It's just not even in the same universe.

And I'm not getting emotional, I'm getting frustrated with the person repeatedly saying "no its wealth" despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary right before their eyes.

Bro you are such a dense donut. For the 10th time, your assumption that this is only a wealth effect can be immediately refuted by the many walkable wealthy areas served by transit where emissions are lower than average. The data includes emissions for goods, services, etc. These areas still have lower emissions. Transportation is a much larger source than you seem to think.

That lifestyle is incompatible with increased density and transit access. You're making my point for me. People in the richest parts of Manhattan are just as rich as the people in potomac, and yet they live in condos, walk, bike, take transit, and if they own a car, it's less cars that are driven less than they are in potomac.

The NYT data includes flights, goods, and services purchases. Despite ALL that, those ultra wealthy parts of Manhattan still have lower emissions than the rest of the country.

Your desperation to shift the discussion away from a real achievable goal (we should densify and increase transit to reduce emissions) to an absurd one (transit doesn't matter because of wealth so we should all just yell at the rich and not change our lifestyles)

Ease of car use is directly opposed to ease of transit/walkability/bikability. You can't have good transit/walkability/bikability with ubiquitous parking and car dependent infrastructure. So you're setting up an absurd hypothetical where driving was easy AND walking, transit, and biking were also easy THEN the rich would still use their car.

But those things can't coexist. Car infrastructure and culture is actively hostile and disruptive to all other forms of transportation. Good transit and walkability necessitates it being more difficult to drive.

So if anything you've just changed the nature of the second order causation from

Transit -> More housing -> less emissions

To

Transit -> less driving -> less emissions.

It's still causation.

Manhattan. Capitol Hill. San Francisco. Literally just look at any rich area that's walkable and we'll served by transit on the map and you will see lower emissions despite their absurd wealth.

Capitol Hill and Manhattan are insanely wealthy, extremely well served by transit, and the rich do use them. And because they use them, their emissions are lower.

Your prejudices about who uses transit, and who lives where, are just that, prejudices. Your desperation to believe suburban lifestyles don't harm the environment does nothing to change the reality.

Once again, that is completely refuted by the extremely wealthy, transit rich neighborhoods with lower than average emissions which can be found on this map, like Capitol Hill and Manhattan.

Liquor Stores don't increase housing density. Transit does. That's the difference ding dong.

Not to mention the obvious effect that transit has on transportation emissions.

Like I'm talking about transit as a second order (and first order via transportation) emissions reducer and you're responding with spurious correlations.

Literally not the same at all.

Transit access usually leads to increased density because people want to live near transit. That's why transit oriented development exists. Second order causation would still be causation.

Okay but transit access usually leads to higher density because people want to live near transit. That's why transit oriented development exists.

??? Okay but the increased density is usually because people want to live near the metro lines. Have you ever heard of transit oriented development?

Okay but if metro is convenient for them (which is possible) they absolutely will use it. Capitol Hill is also super high income, but the metro, biking, and walking are convenient enough that rich people still use them. Thus, the emissions there are lower than the nation. Manhattan is also absurdly wealthy, but has great transit and walkability, thus leading to emissions lower than the nation.

So yes, a rich walkable/transit served neighborhood will have more emissions than a poor one, but transit and walkability still leads to huge emissions reductions.

Between 8th and 2nd st SE

Sidewalk level bike lanes are straight up fantastic. The ones on Virginia Avenue are some of my favorite in the city. The ones at the wharf are also very good other than the pedestrians walking in them all the time (not their fault, sidewalk should be bigger).

Density, but also just time. NYC has been a huge city for centuries, and a lot of those cheap mom and pop shops have been there for ages. A good number of them even own their stores free and clear, which helps keep the monthly costs low.

DC has not been a bustling city for nearly as long. We didn't even break the top 10 cities/metro areas (by population) until like the 1950's. So we've had less time to establish a good working class food culture.

Also, the food culture that was established was mostly destroyed during the MLK riots in the 1960s. H st and U st used to be bustling African American commercial hubs that could have been the basis for great mom and pop shops if the strips hadn't been burned down and then neglected.

Then, like 20 years later you have the crack epidemic, "murder capital of the US" and all of the other issues that lead to 90s-00s suburban flight. Then in the 10s and 20s you have gentrification and now COVID.

There's unfortunately a lot of events that have kneecapped DC's food scene before it was really able to get started.