Reply to D.C. needs to get a lot more car friendly

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Given that a few thousand businesses have left downtown D.C. over the past two years, you would think that the city would be exploring ways to encourage more people to return and spend their money.

It may pain some District residents to hear this, but the city needs the suburbs. At this point, making the city less accessible by car will only hurt the District and strengthen the cycle of economic disinvestment and rising crime.[/quote]

public transport must be improved, not private transport, which makes the city a terrible place. And as everybody knows: a lot of busniesses had to close in the last two years beacuse of the pandemic. Bikers and pedestrians are not the cause.[/quote]
It’s fascinating that you believe the city is so enthralling that people in the suburbs will willingly and in large numbers take public transit into the city for recreation and entertainment purposes over other options, if only public transit was better? This is seriously deluded thinking that is contradicted by the fact that people in the suburbs refuse to take transit today to go to the city for work. But sure, on a Saturday they’ll hop on the metro for shopping or a performance at the Shakespeare Theatre when the same stores or high quality theatre experiences are available more conveniently and closer to home.

The reality is that another sectoral shift has occurred (starting back in 2015) away from cities and these policies just accelerate the inevitable.  [/quote]

I don't think you're right about the timing but I do think you are right about the secular trend and the impact these car hostile measures will have.[/quote]
The rate of population growth in DC has declined every year since 2011, eventually turning negative the last couple years. Up until 2015, the trend was increasing domestic out-migration which was offset by international in-migration. After 2015, declining domestic out-migration persisted but then international in-migration also started declining. 
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/demographic-shifts-dc-following-covid-pandemic/
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/districts-population-grows-14th-year-row-weaker-rate/
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/census-shows-pandemic-exodus-has-broken-dc-population-growth/

The data don’t lie and it should worry anyone that cares about this city. Instead there seems to be a deep, deep denial while the Dulles corridor is clearly the short-to-medium term economic center of this area and judging by license plates, a big chunk of DC residents are driving out to the suburbs on weekends to spend their disposable income instead of the other way around. [/quote]

so turning DC into a parking lot/highway is going to fix this? because it seems to me that what is actually attracting people to the city is increased residential density and entertainment districts purposefully designed to be car free/car optional. U st, Navy Yard, Wharf … Why is allowing cars to dominate, say, 16th st as they drive from MD going to make living on the 16th st corridor more inviting? What will make 16th street more inviting is a functioning, rapid bus line. 
[/quote]
You project so much bad faith onto others you have completely lost the plot. [/quote]

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