Data comes from The New York Times; green is fewer emissions. Unfortunately the color scheme isn't the greatest when dealing with a transit system with green and orange lines, but at least the stations should be recoginisible enough.

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Super interesting!! Would love to see this for other cities

Looks like it correlates well with density and/or wealth.

Maybe industry as well. Looks like some of the high emissions area are commercial/industrial areas.

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My first lesson was to change the map projection because the default QGIS one looks rather squished.

I would guess metro proximity correlates with wealth because being near metro is convenient and desirable and drives up the price of nearby housing, creating pockets of relative wealth.

I wouldn't think that industry affects this - household emissions should be limited to literal households (i.e. as a matter of survey design). I absolutely agree that wealth and density are a major contributor here.

I haven't read the article so I'm not sure if this data includes emissions from purchases and travel, but I'm guessing it does which is likely driving a lot of the darker areas. Plus emissions from long commutes!

Transit is obviously a big factor, but I think the bigger factor is how Carbon intense SFH McMansions are.

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low-green

high-red

map-terrible

Indeed. From the article:

> Higher-income households generate more greenhouse gases, on average, because wealthy Americans tend to buy more stuff — appliances, cars, furnishings, electronic gadgets — and travel more by car and plane, all of which come with related emissions.

Part of how carbon intense they are is because they don’t get any transit though

Bigger house equals more energy for heating and cooling, can hold more crap (which has embedded carbon), takes more material to construct among other things.

Shows once again that the most sustainable forms of life is via density.

wow, so much more powerful an image with the metro lines added. Well done

Seems very much correlation vs causation. The housing near the metro lines tends to be denser and less energy intensive.

Wonder what color the airport would be

So, Fountainhead Park (on the Fairfax side of the Occoquan reservoir, south of Clifton) has high emissions? There are no homes or businesses there.

I do not understand how the values shown in this map were calculated.

Amazing! I saw the NYT map yesterday. Smart of you to overlay the metro network

Notice that emissions are the lowest near metro stops

So wouldn’t it be safe to say that it has everything g to do with wealth and nothing with transit?

Wealthy people buy and use more stuff, but they also don’t need transit because they have a Porsche in the garage.

No, for the simple reason that transit use reduces emissions per person-mile travelled. Without transit this map would have fewer areas with lower emissions.

You may have missed my point. Those two can exist at the same time. I was saying that wealth is the greater predictor for emissions because even if you put up a Potomac metro stop, wealthy people are not going to use it. Even if they did use it, that would probably only help with a very small portion of their total emissions.

Things like vacations, frequently updating their vehicles, clothes, etc., would be a greater emissions factor than whether or not someone rides the metro.

Most people don’t ride the metro because it’s environmentally friendly. They do it because it’s either convenient for them, or they don’t have money for a vehicle.

Ah, I thought you were making a point about the map’s distribution of emissions.

I agree that wealth/income is the best predictor for household emissions.

So it’s interesting to me that there’s the little block of higher emissions in old town, even though it’s one of the most walkable/bikeable areas in the dmv. I wonder if it has to do with the houses being so old that they require more energy to heat/cool.

It had an interactive key on the NYT that unfortunately didn't translate here. There were 5 categories including transportation contributing to the carbon footprint rating. Colors represent above and below the national average (dark red = bad). Interestingly food was one of the categories and seemed to trend with transportation in north Arlington and McLean (sorry I didn't look elsewhere).

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever known how far up the red line goes, geographically speaking.

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I would never have thought Fair Oaks would be low-emission, with all the office parks and the Mall! But now that I think about it, those of us who live here do mostly live in apartments and rowhouses, and often bike to the grocery store or mall. If we do drive, which I do think most of us do, everything we need or want is rarely more than a couple of miles away. I wonder if most of the people who live here also work here, which could further lower vehicle emissions so much below the surrounding areas? I would be surprised to learn that's the case given this is still the DC suburbs, but there are certainly enough local jobs to support it.

Nova is so freaking epic

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It’s not just the size, it’s the low density.

Low density means you need more roads which are very carbon intensive, additionally it also means you have to drive everywhere. While in a city walking and biking are viable options in the suburbs moving as little as half a mile often means crossing multiple lanes of traffic, no side walks, and businesses that are built for cars and not people. To compound this even further, it’s not just that one person has to drive for pretty much everything, but everyone has to drive to get anything done which further increases the need of car infrastructure.

Suburbs are not scalable, they need to die as soon as possible, and at the very least we should tax their inefficiencies through a land value tax.

They are arguing the reverse, high wealth folks in SFHs are higher emitters.

I think the post-metro suburb green islands are really interesting. Gaithersburg and North Bethesda have a lot of big town center style development that make it a lot easier to walk/bike to shopping, have a mix of office and retail on-site, and also have bigger green spaces. But Reston doesn't have that (I don't know how comperable rtc is, I've never been there). And leisure world/Northern silver spring don't have that modern development style. I think the Gaithersburg green island is probably a mix of modern development styles and the working-middle class population.

I think you're more correct. A household's home energy usage is the primary contributor to emissions, moreso than transit. I strongly suspect OP of this thread is mistaking correlation for causation.

Mansions… FTFY

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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.

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

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.

I understand what you’re saying. But I do not think that public transit is a huge driver for lowering overall emissions and this graph does not prove it.

I guarantee that you could do an overlay of this map with a map based on concentration of liquor stores, and the color scheme would be the same.

Does that also mean that when you put more liquor stores in an area that carbon emissions will go down? Or is there another explanation?

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.

You’re missing my point ding dong. My point is that more wealth equals more emissions. Less wealth equals less things like cars, big houses, boats, clothes, etc. I’m saying that the metro is a very small part of peoples overall carbon emissions. Yes if someone takes the train over their car, their personal emissions will go down. But people with lots of wealth (even if they take the metro) will totally negate that benefit with the other things they’re doing and buying.

The liquor store comment was just showing that the map more closely correlates to the presence of wealth, not the presence of a metro. So I said you could also say “the presence of liquor stores drops carbon emissions”, “the presence of check cashing stores drops carbon emissions”, etc. None of those things are the real cause of lower emissions, it’s the lack of wealth which means they aren’t big players in consumerism.

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.

The presence of a metro/bus stops/ public transit of any sort indicates lack of wealth. Because overwhelmingly, the users of public transit are poorer or just more dense overall.

But what happens to the majority of people when they aren’t a broke 23 year old anymore? They buy a house in the burbs and get a nice car to go with it. No more metro, and their emissions go up

Exceptions to not refute the general consensus. Living in Capitol hill or Manhattan with a car can be extremely inconvenient between street parking, cost of private parking, and downtown traffic.

Plus everything that you will want to take your car to (whether it’s dinner or work) will also require a high cost to drive the vehicle.

But the wealthiest neighborhoods, like parts of PG county, Potomac, Great falls, etc., will never have those residents using the metro even if it’s somewhat close to their house.

It would be more of a hassle to drive to the metro, park, get on the metro, back on the metro, car, then drive home.

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.

But that doesn’t even get to my main point. Irregardless of metro access, someone single living in a studio apartment making $45k per year, will never match the total emissions or carbon offset or whatever you call it, to the family with combined income of $500k living in a 6 bedroom house and 3 cars. Groceries, vacations , clothes. All produce emissions. Even if the entire family uses the metro, it will do nothing for the rest of their output.

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.

What about anything I said would make you assume I think suburban lifestyle doesn’t harm the environment?

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.

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)

From the beginning, you have missed my point. I never said transit doesn’t lower emissions. My main point, is that transit is a very small part of people’s overall emissions. So no it is not “the presence of transit” that predicts low emissions. Moreso it’s “the lack of wealth that predicts low emissions.” Irregardless of how they transport themselves

You’re getting emotional, and not understanding anything I’m saying.

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.

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.

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.

Exactly. The lower income areas seem to have lower emissions even when they are away for transit. It seems like there is definitely some correlation with transit availability, but that doesn't explain all of the variation. The West End of Alexandria (near the old Landmark Mall) is a lower income area with poor access to transit aside from buses. Then there is a pocket of wealthier residents in SFHs right next door that have some of the highest emissions in the area.

Simply saying that Metrorail access leads to lower carbon emissions is far too simplistic.

Wealth also doesn't correlate directly as you can see the pockets of low emissions high wealth areas around stations especially along the orange, silver and blue lines.

It's almost as if carbon emissions and addressing climate change is an incredibly complicated and multi-layered problem that doesn't have simple answers or silver bullets to combat it.

100% agree. Its a multi-faceted issue.

yeah compare gaithersburg, which has no metro (or at least you have to drive or bus to shady grove) but has high density, with the maryland side of chevy chase, which is right by the bethesda metro but is all large SFHs

I agree. I guess then it comes down to whether the density was there first or the transit.

Metro causes the density...?

Yes, it can over time