My 'hood's a 58 out of possible 100 :o Type in your address and find out how "walkable" your neighborhood is. I assume walkable is also bikeable.
http://walkscore.com
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My 'hood's a 58 out of possible 100 :o Type in your address and find out how "walkable" your neighborhood is. I assume walkable is also bikeable.
http://walkscore.com
Mine's a 60. Not bad - actually, I thought it would be higher. There are lots of folks 'round here affiliated with the university who are car free. Not easy, but do-able.
CA
Mine's an 86! Woohoo!
ouch. 23. and, yet, I walk to work most days, and do a good amount of whatever shopping I can during my lunch breaks, walking, of course.
I guess I consider walkable a bit farther than they do. :D
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
mine is a 45!! nothing nearby except a minimarket; lots of hills, nearly no sidewalks
wow! 89 out of 100
We did pick this neighborhood partially for its proximity to lots of businesses and downtown and partially because we could afford it.
It looks like the score is based on amenities within walking distance, and I'm willing to walk pretty far, so put in my walkable distance and I bet the score would be even higher. A "short" walk for us is about 4 miles round trip. Much longer than that and I usually prefer to bike.
If this is the same test I did before, it assumed I was on flat ground and distances as the crow flies. I scored pretty good because I'm only about a mile to the grocery, drug store, etc. Trouble is, that drugstore is 1000' down (and back up) a very steep & wooded slope.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trek420
Mine is 7/100 That is not a typo. Funny I can ride to work and to the grocery store easily. Probably wouldn't want to walk it tho - too steep.
Walk Score: 89 out of 100 — Very Walkable - excellent! I just got back from a big walk.
34
There are a lot of businesses within walking distance, but it's on a busy highway with strip malls everywhere. Definitely not scenic.
ETA: New neighborhood is a lowly 14. Not too many businesses within walking distance, I guess. What the heck do they consider walking distance anyway? I do think it's very bike-able though. There are some busy roads with loads of places to shop, dine, etc. within five miles. I'm really excited about the huge new Asian grocery store that's nearby.
Funny K-girl, if it was too steep, I'd prefer to walk it over cycling it. I'd be too scared to cycle it!:eek:HTML Code:Funny I can ride to work and to the grocery store easily. Probably wouldn't want to walk it tho - too steep.
Quote:
Originally Posted by extra-vert
It sucks either way but cycling is faster...:o
Funny, the score from my house on the hill is only 52 out of 100. But if you punch in #1 Main St, which is only 1/2 mile from there, a few blocks away at the bottom of our hill, the score shoots up to 86! :eek:
What, a measley 1/2 mile makes our walk undo-able?? Weird.
It's a GREAT walk into town from our house, I do it several times a week and then add another 4 miles for fun!
:rolleyes:
Ours is 85. Yes, people come to our neighbourhood to walk, bike and hang out in the park, waterside area.
I found it funny that according to the rating, we were close to..a medical library. It must be a private medical library or the hospital library which only hospital staff can use because I'm not aware of any other one. We are 15 min. walk from Vancouver's main Central library that looks like the Roman Colseum.
We live at the foot of 30 kms. bike and pedestrian path. Here I am way down on the bike below on the path, a photo taken from our balcony.
http://www3.telus.net/public/hjbecke...s/image018.htm
True we are 5 min. walk from closest coffee shop, another 10 min. elsewhere still tons more other cafes..and restaurants..the community centre is 5 min. away ...so is doctor, dentist, my bank, etc. 15 min. walk to commuter train. Next year we will have another commuter train station in a different direction that will take you out to the airport from downtown. That train bridge...will feature a bike path deck.... :D
This is why we like to live not far from downtown or in downtown. Remember we see mountains and ocean while we are downtown.
No question, to move from Toronto to suburbs in Vancouver would have been abit of a mistake.
Oooohhh what beautiful bike paths you have!!! :eek: :p I love that photo of you looking so tiny and happy way down there!Quote:
Originally Posted by shootingstar
Here are our luxurious "bike paths" in rural New York state- two lane highways with often virtually no shoulders at all- look in back of me, it's rather typical for around here. Lots of potholes too. That's our driveway on the left.... :rolleyes: :cool: ....and people kid me about wearing screaming yellow jerseys...
my road
gah. apparently, mine is a 0 as in zero.
But the walk score apparently does not take into account the fact that I could bike to lots of places with fresh local food (in the interest of disclosure, I have not actually shopped this way yet), and can easily run to town hall and the library (which I have done). And that there is a multi use trail network in the woods behind my house. Scoring seems highly geared toward urban areas with businesses.
Darn, the maps are old... my street's not on it. We've been on real google maps for something like a year now.
I picked a nearby street that is on the map, and it scored a 23. Doesn't really take into account that within a mile is the farmer's market in summers, there are decent sidewalks and walking paths (and bike lanes), the few bus stops we do have are within reasonable walking distance (half a mile at most) and it's really pretty flat here. That said, there are some things you can't get within our few mile radius, either, and said public transportation isn't very extensive at all. But hey, we have a home depot now... that's pretty handy for walkers, right? ;)
Someone just needs to come up with a Cycling Score site now... :p
Thanks, I feel better now. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by tygab
glad to oblige :p
in seriousness, if a neighborhood is full of all sorts of stores and businesses, that may be great, but I'm not sure it's any more "green" and local. And it looks like the walk distance is like 1.5 miles or something.
Where I live I can get meat, veggies, fruit and eggs anywhere ranging from my backyard to a big farmstand a few miles away. This food has traveled extremely minimally, and has little packaging, yet this is not a factor in this method.
Don't get me wrong, walking and running are good. So is biking. So is horse riding... and I see a lot of all three :)
72/100 here. But a lot of what it's showing as walkable is perfectly fine for getting *to* those places, but straight uphill (or >20 flights of stairs set into the hillside) to get home. Maybe I should move to the bottom of my hill...heh.
wow - a few blocks makes a big difference - I'm pretty sure you live just a little north of me.Quote:
Originally Posted by dex
I must be in heaven!!:D :D
Hermosa Beach came up with 95 ya hear 95 And this in carcentric world of Los Angels 'burb.
So cool. yes I do walk to the grocery store (Ralph's on a pinch) I walk to Starbucks if I'm too lazy to go to Java man.
must be two dozen restaurants within walking distance and another 4 or 5 dozen bars. Yes we have a dubious distinction of having the highest concentration of bars in California.
Drug stores, jewelry store, bike shops (BMX only though), and riff raffy places like Ms. so and so fortune teller... A porn shop...
a green belt to walk jog... Several large parks.
well there are downsides here.
smilingcat
Really not sure how they work their statistics out?
From where I live in Poole, Dorset, whichever direction I go, I can ride, mainly off road too.
44.
Bang in the shopping centre of Poole, Dorset it only gave it 31!
Chelsea in London, which is pure hell for cycling because of the volume of traffic and not much better for walkers with all the pollution it was given 75.
OMG...........OK, the parks are nice to walk in but Hyde Park in central London was given 91.
Sandbanks, Poole, Dorset is said to be the fourth most expensive place to live in the world and it was given 40!
I think the guys who do all the statistics have never considered cycling anywhere!
It was a bit of fun to do AND I did not think it would include the UK, thanks Trek. :)
Clock
Yeah I think this thing is on crack. I live across the main drag from university housing and everyone walks or bikes. That and it doesn't list half the places that are close. I have a bar within staggering distance! The Denny's is missing, McDonald's is missing... sheesh.
Hey there, Trek :) Didja try our mutual Mom's address? They gave it an 80. She was looking for a place where she wouldn't have to drive everywhere. Looks like she chose well. :D My place scored a 23, but they didn't locate the neighborhood schools, libraries, the pub and restaurant at the end of our street, the dozen or so shopping centers (not to mention the entire downtown area) within a mile or three in various directions, the parks, my gym, the LBS ... They just don't have enough info about the place. And then too, you have to know what a person's trying to achieve by walking. Are you looking for convenience, or trying to stay in shape? Sonoma is flat, flat, flat (well, there are hills all around the town, but not in the town itself). Here I can get my Saturday workout just walking downtown and back to do my shopping, carrying the groceries back up a couple miles of 10-20% hills. :cool: And then I can stop at the pub around the corner (it's even called Kvilhaugen, which means "Rest Stop Hill") to enjoy the view and a beer. But yeah, if by 80 they mean that an 80-year-old LOL can manage without a car, then they definitely got Mom's address right. :D
Hmmm...
Home #1, with no sidewalks outside the neighborhood, no bike routes, and no bus service, got a 38.
Home #2, with bike routes and sidewalks throughout the entire town and bus service everywhere - in a BikeLeague Bronze rated community...got an 18.
Maybe they determine based on what you can walk TO - i.e. destinations.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClockworkOrange
My house got a 17! :eek:
Our neighborhood has TONS of walkers - including dog walkers - and joggers. No sidewalks, but fairly quiet, although rolling, streets. But there isn't much in terms of destinations. The grocery store is over a mile away (bikeable, but not sure I'd want to walk there - especially on a code red air quality day like today.).
Mine got an 11. It also assumed places were open to the public, which aren't. Like assuming a coffee distributor was a coffee shop.
I got a 62. I actually think Burlington, VT is a lot more walkable than that... The following are all less than two miles from my house:
--a nice, large natural foods co-op
--a pedestrian (closed to traffic) street with shopping, restaurants and bars
--a university
--two bike shops
--two bike paths
--several parks, a "beach" (on Lake Champlain), a sailing center
--a movie theatre, a performing arts venue, a post office and a public library
--Starbucks...
Checked out the village where I live here in Essex and it only came out at 55. But we don't actually own a car. We walk, cycle or use public transport to get everywhere. Granted it's a small village with only a couple of shops (although the lists they gave were out of date and incomplete), but the bigger city of Colchester is only 5 minutes away on the train, 15 minutes on the bus with a dense city centre largely pedestrianised. And London is only an hour away.
Goose Egg! However, it is the most walkable/runnable/ bikeable (just not a road bike - 2.5 miles from pavement) area I've seen in my life. It's just that we're 5 miles from anything. Can just let the dog run loose, once we get onto old logging roads. I don't like city/town living (nearly lost my mind the one time we actually did it).
However, I agree the thing is on crack - the distances it shows are all even closer than they really are. 2 miles to things that HAVE to be 10, 13 to something I know is 20. It also misplaced my house by about 2 miles, from the looks of it.
I drive to work (12 miles one way) most days (try to ride once or twice a week in the summer), groceries are on the way home, hardware store is on the way home, bank, ski trails, lbs.... all on the way home, and about 5 miles from home (although this thing says they're 2-3). I go to "town" (20 miles from home) once every week or three.
My address got a 26. Not surprising since sidewalks just suddenly end, and we have no shoulder to ride bikes on. Still, I love Cape Cod and manage to walk and bike for both exercise and errands as much as possible, and bike commute 2 - 3 days a week. But the Cape is very car-centric and has poor public transportation.
Mine's a 71, but I wonder about their scoring system. Not just the distance, but also what they consider in ranking a neighborhood. Like they don't consider the proximity of doctors and dentists. And they count odd things in categories (7-11 is a grocery store? And the university library, while very nice, doesn't allow the general public in, so why include it?) and have way, way out of date information--they have things listed for my neighborhood that have been closed for years, and a lot of stuff has opened recently (that I think makes the neighborhood even more walkable) that isn't listed. But overall a 71 seems about right for my neighborhood. If we had to, we could live without a car.
Sarah
Ha! My score is a 15! I guess it's because we have no sidewalks on my street and it's 4 miles from town, on a huge hill. However, to me that's close. I don't walk to town (well, I did twice), but I do ride my hybrid there.
Funny, we have tons of cyclists and walkers here even though it is ranked so low. But if you were a "regular" person living on my street would be a detriment to riding.
It's just far enough away so I don't become fat from going to all of the restaurants in town. If I lived one mile closer, I might be tempted to walk there more often.
We'll be the first to admit that Walk Score is just an approximation of walkability. There are a number of factors that contribute to walkability that are not part of our algorithm:
* Public transit: Good public transit is important for walkable neighborhoods.
* Street width and block length: Narrow streets slow down traffic. Short blocks provide more routes to the same destination and make it easier to take a direct route.
* Street design: Sidewalks and safe crossings are essential to walkability. Appropriate automobile speeds, trees, and other features also help.
* Safety from crime and crashes: How much crime is in the neighborhood? How many traffic accidents are there? Are streets well-lit?
* Pedestrian-friendly community design: Are buildings close to the sidewalk with parking in back? Are destinations clustered together?
* Topography: Hills can make walking difficult, especially if you're carrying groceries.
* Freeways and bodies of water: Freeways can divide neighborhoods. Swimming is harder than walking.
* Weather: In some places it's just too hot or cold to walk regularly.
My house had a score of 58.
Karen
98! Walker's Paradise... :p
Ooh, my neighborhood got a 100!! I love living smack dab in the middle of the East Side of Milwaukee. Beer, Food, Laundry and Shopping all a step outside of my door. (oh and school is right here too).
This site is not up to date - it doesn't list the grocery store that is within walking distance of my house that opened earlier this year. Also it leaves out most of the restaurants, bars and shops that are in the same area as the grocery store.
I've got you beat! Mine is a 3/100!!! Which is true, you kinda have to drive to get anywhere and the roads are very unsafe and put together by committee for sure. The main intersection is 2 roads running parallel with each other with a little road connecting them and only 2 stop signs for 5 or 6 ways of traffic. It's scary enough in a car!Quote:
Originally Posted by kelownagirl
My other house is a 20/100, which is kind of a bummer because there is a big strip with 3 grocery stores, tons of fast food joints, a couple really good restaurants and misc shopping that is only a mile from my house.
ETA: the public transit bus stop is also a mile from my house.
I live in an "8".
Yep, everyone's pretty dependent on their cars/SUV's out there in the 'burbs, and the drivers aren't used to seeing anyone walking or biking on the road.
There are a few paved paths running around the neighborhoods, but none of them really go anywhere except to another road...
My partner hates living out where we do... takes 45 minutes of driving to get to any decent mountain biking trails. We both probably spend 1-1.5 hours a day in the car commuting to work too. Yep, the gas prices hurt.
Now if only the real estate market would go back up we could move w/o losing a ton of money to some place more rideable!