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I take the point, but we also have to guard against our temptation to choose metrics that flatter our cause--to steal a line from @ScottAdamsSays "Sure, 47 mph isn't a very good top speed for a sports car, but you have to compare that to hopping!"
@ScottAdamsSays Are we talking about "enabling" people to live more densely, or are we talking about forcing them to do so? How much pressure will be required to get suburban families into tighter quarters, and is that pressure politically feasible without European-style fuel taxes?
Because AFAIK those fuel taxes weren't imposed to fight global warming, or fairly price the externalities of carbon; they were imposed for geopolitical reasons during the OPEC-induced oil crises of the 1970s, and greatly enabled by Europe's relative lack of oil deposits.
The reason I think this matters is that I think the political outlook for $3 a gallon gas taxes is pretty grim. So without those, how do we get people to voluntarily pack themselves into apartments and small-lot homes, and take the bus rather than driving?
(I am assuming that we can overcome all the NIMBY zoning problems--heroic assumption! But let's focus on transport).
Using my own case as an example: driving is faster for me than taking the bus. In fact, walking is at least equally as fast as taking the bus. And I live in an area with very good bus coverage.
Parking is expensive, of course. But on every other metric, some other mode is preferable to standing on a crowded bus for 30 minutes. And I'm like the perfect use case for public transit: a grew up using transit rather than a car, *like* transit, and live in a very dense city.
(Though in fairness I also kind of have to own a car, because Ubers will not transport my giant dog to the vet, so I only have to think about marginal rather than total cost of car ownership. But lots of people are in related situations--3 kids, elderly parent, whatevs.)
So I think the word "enabling" is doing a lot of work there.
