| Sunday, November 18, 2007 |
| Hoofin' it |
Visit this fun & informative web site: walkscore.com
"Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc." I checked out a few addresses, first of all, of course, my own. It has a Walk Score of 72 out of 100, which is "Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car." Since Joe and I share a car, it's important to us to live in a place where the other person isn't stranded if one of us is using the auto. We're exactly 7/10 of a mile from both the central library and the natural grocery store down the street, which I think is perfect -- I mean, you want to get at least a bit of exercise, especially if you're buying, say, a scone at the bakery. There's a mini-mart 2 blocks away if you just need to grab a newspaper or a carton of milk.
Our former home had a Walk Score of 76, which seems on the low side to me -- I thought it would be higher. My parents' house has a Walk Score of 26: "Not Walkable: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must." I guess it depends on how you define "easy walking range," since my dad walks to the market all the time (about 6/10 of a mile). There's also a bunch of preloaded celebrity addresses, such as the apartment from the TV show "Friends" in New York (perfect 100 -- duh; I'm sure all of Manhattan scores a 100) and President Bush's Crawford ranch (a 0, but come on, it's a ranch, you're not going to find a Starbucks down the street). The creators of the site are former Microsofties so of course they included Bill Gates' house, which scores a 6.
Calculate your own Walk Score and post it here in the comments section! Do you think the results are accurate? Discuss. |
posted by 125records @ 3:41 PM  |
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| 10 Comments: |
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Neat app! Our score is 91. I <3 my neighborhood!
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Hmmm, I just have a 52 rating, and I definitely consider my neighborhood quite walkable. In the summer, I go a week at a time without driving.
I think it would be nice if you could set the range for what you consider walkable.
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68. Probably a little high...since both the closest-listed theater and closest-listed bookstore no longer exist. Stores are fine...but most the bars and restaurants nearby, we don't like!
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My 'hood got an 85, which doesn't surprise me--its "walkability" is the reason I love it!
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I got a 28, which doesn't surprise me. I'm in a heavily residential area with only one small strip "mall" within walking distance (Subway, liquor store, pizza joint, etc). However, there's a few suspect things. For one, it lists a local pizza parlor as the closest entry under "Parks". The closest "restaurant" is a catering business that I'm sure is run out of someone's home. I do find it interesting that the two closest Safeways are exactly the same distance from me (within .01 miles). I always wondered which was closer.
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48.. I still walk almost everywhere though. Maybe I'm like Neal, and my walkability range is higher than everyone else's
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It is pretty neat, and my neighborhood got the high-ish score I expected (85, bitches!). A couple of minor gripes, though. It doesn't seem to take public transit into consideration (which means that my old neighborhood in Oakland, with easy BART access, got slightly lower score than my current 'hood, which isn't so well connected to transit). And it seems to calculate distances as the crow flies -- which means that it seems to think that some restaurants are within walking distance of my mom's suburban home when in fact taking the shortest route would involve tracking through woods and people's backyards.
It also seems to give equal weight to, say, a KFC and a sit-down restaurant, or to a 7-11 and a Safeway, though I'm not sure if there's any way around that.
Still fun to play with, though. I actually went through my address book of all my friends in the 'burbs and tried to find out who had the lowest score. My ex-girlfriend from college, who lives in a fairly rural part of Tompkins County, NY, about a 20-minute drive from Ithaca, actually got a 0!
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I got a 63, which seems about right. There are many restaurants within walking distance -- if you consider Taco Bell, Krispie Kreme and Jimmy John's Subs to be restaurants. Lots of shopping, too, although I almost never go to the mall. The biggest problem with walkability around here is the weather. For instance, it's sleeting right now and I will not be walking anywhere.
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My walk score is 22… I was rather upset with it. And I was surprised to know that there is another score called drive score to evaluate my house. I found the way to calculate it online at Fizber site (http://drivescore.fizber.com/). I’ve got much better results – 44.
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I could be wrong, but I believe a careful investigation will reveal that the last comment about "drive score" is a piece of comment spam. You'll find similar comments on just about every page that mentions Walk Score.
The "Drive Score" rip-off of Walk Score is discussed in this post on the "Sprawled Out" blog, where one commenter described it thus: "I think it's an excuse to leave comment spam at blogs that talk about the walkscore site."
It looks like an elaborate excuse to drive (ahem!) traffic to a real estate site, not to mention a reassuring "yeah, but that'll never work in the real world" dismissal of the walkable neighborhoods movement. "Sure, walking may be fine for a New Yorker, but as for the rest of us, it's OK, just keep right on driving everywhere, folks!"
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Name: Sue
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Neat app! Our score is 91. I <3 my neighborhood!