The problem is you’re comparing the commute by public transport in the current status quo and missing the point that fixing the car culture means improving public transport so that it does become more convenient than taking the car.
Plenty of European cities have achieved this. I work in London and I wouldn’t even dream of driving into the city. It’s far more convenient to get the train.
I think you should read my comment a little more carefully. 1 and 2 are due to serious physical and economic constraints that are very unlikely to change and apply to all but the absolute most dense areas. Remember, this is in DC. It's unusually dense and is supposed to be the best we have. 3 and 4 are additionally due to cultural, historical, and demographic problems that are becoming worse rather than better and the current political situation is working to accelerate it.
I'm not against transit but it's not the solution people think it is.
DC isn't unusually dense. It's only the 6th most dense city in America and not even in the top 100 for the world. It doesn't even have an districts that are in the top 100 (Paris, on the other hand, features several districts and still has good public transport networks).
And this is just looking at density in terms of population. There's also building density, London would rank very high up there and has excellent public transport.
The problem in DC isn't technical; the problem is cultural. You see the car as a solution so you keep investing in roads and under funding public transport. Whereas Europe took a different approach. Some UK cities have "park and ride" schemes where you parks on the outskirts and get a cheap bus into the city. Buses will have their own dedicated lanes too so aren't subject to congestion. Some of these cities even go as far as pedestrianizing chunks of the city center so the only way to access it is via subway, bus, tram or bicycle.
The benefits of improving public transport isn't just reducing congestion either. You improve the transport for the vulnerable (elderly, poor, etc), you improve the air quality in the city, you improve road safety. It's better for the environment, it's better for peoples health, it's better for moving people around. But it requires a cultural shift to happen.
> Then both in terms of any arbitrary area in the US or any arbitrary city in the US, it's unusually dense (much more dense than the mean density.)
I haven’t visited DC so I’ll have to take your word for it. But it should be noted that I can’t find anything online that supports yours assessment of DC being unusually dense.
And even if it is, that just makes a stronger case for the need of better public transport services.
> Many places in the US have these and both DC and the suburbs around it are full of them.
I’m sure they are but having a park and ride scheme is only of benefit if you invest in public transport, which, by your own admission, DC doesn’t.
It is. But the problem is that the US is about 80-100 years behind Europe in this.
Personal economies are literally built on the idea of driving, it will be painful to solve that, but unfortunately it’s necessary to solve it otherwise you end up losing enormous amounts of your life to traffic and the infrastructure cost grows exponentially.
America is simply too big for public transit to replace cars to any great extent.
There's an old cliche that goes something like, "In America, people think 100 years is a long time. In Europe, people think 100 kilometers is a long distance." It's pretty much spot on.
Plenty of European cities have achieved this. I work in London and I wouldn’t even dream of driving into the city. It’s far more convenient to get the train.