All you need to provide is an address, and walkscore uses a geographic database of quality-of-life amenities within walking distance such as grocery stores, schools, theaters, and coffee shops (essential to quality of life, in my book!), and a proprietary algorithm (which they admit is still not perfect: it measures as the crow flies, although you'll be using your feet) to give you a single-number score of how walkable vs. auto-centric your world likely is. Scores range from 0 to 100 - above 70 is considered good, above 90 is considered Pedestrian Paradise. I tried several locations in and around Our Fair City, and could not find any location (except downtown) which got a 90 or better (see below).
The website also includes some links to the importance of walking and walkable communities. It was developed by the Sightline Institute, an advocacy organization in the Pacific northwest.
Some local examples:
Conkey/Clifford area-----------Score: 55-60
Neighborhood Of The Arts-----Score: 75
Dewey/Driving Park------------Score: 71
Linden Oaks Office Park--------Score: 32
German House on Gregory----Score: 88
Goodman and Monroe----------Score: 88
Main and Clinton downtown---Score: 97!
How does your neighborhood fare--?
1 comment:
Walk Score is a great opportunity to find out how walkable your neighborhood is. But people nowadays drive much more than walk on foot. So together with your Walk Score one can get his Drive Score as well. This service is available at drivescore.fizber.com I ve tried and my score was 56.
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