What's your walk score?

[kelownagirl]

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.

Thanks, I feel better now.

[tygab]

glad to oblige

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

[dex]

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.

[uk elephant]

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 Granted it's a small village with only a couple of shops (although the lists they gave were out of date and incomplete), but the bigger city of Colchester is only 5 minutes away on the train, 15 minutes on the bus with a dense city centre largely pedestrianised.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.

[SadieKate]

6 because, OMG!, the nearest coffee house is 1.01 miles away.

66 for my previous address, yet I drive a whole lot less now because this neighborhood suits my lifestyle better. No more driving long distances every week for mountainbiking, fishing, etc.

It's a pretty weird system that puts "Freedom from Hunger" under Libraries and a storage facility under Clothing & Music.

[KSH]

74 out of 100.

Although, it's not safe. They didn't look at the crime in the area for the ranking.

Just last Sunday 2 guys were walking around the neighborhood, .10 miles from my place... one had a gun and they were robbing people. Right where I usually run, and at the store I go to, to buy food.

So it's only walkable if you have a concealed weapon to protect yourself.

[mydisneydollars]

Mine is 69 out of 100 not to bad

[mudmucker]

Sigh. Score of zero. Well, if I ride the bike to the hardware store or the nearest grocery store it's about a 28 to 30-mile roundtrip - same roads I'd take with the car.

[Fredwina]

My current address is 78 - I walked to the hair salon today and it's a quarter mile to albertson's
Muy old pace in PA gets 15 - I would agree

[grey]

Mine's a lowly 29 but I can ride almost to whatever I really want to do, and do walk to the grocery store and stuff so... not THAT bad!

[BluePeace2]

My old address in the states got a 0, yes that is correct 0 but it was and still is a summer camp And now looking at where I live now, yes you got it a big fat 0. We have a few things near us but for groceries I'd have to bike if anything.

[sfa]

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

[Crankin]

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.

[Tuckervill]

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

[rij73]

98! Walker's Paradise...