Monday, July 21, 2008

What's your walkscore?

Ok, I really will get some work done today, but I've got to post about this because it's so cool! This site called Walk Score takes your address and gives you a score based on how many amenities are within walking distance of your residence. My score is 91/100! The average for my part of Big City is a little lower than that.

It tells me how far I am (as the crow flies) from our local hardware store (.17 miles), public library (.37 miles), corner store (.11 miles), great local cafes (our favorite is .39 miles), and more. It includes a few things that seem to be miscategorized (such as a dance theatre that appears to be listed under the mailing address but they don't actually have dance performances there). Overall this looks like a great way to evaluate places where you might want to live, and a good way to get to know what's in your current neighborhood.

The walkability of my neighborhood means that it is really easy to be car-free, and that improves my quality of life. What's your walkscore?

Thanks to Kent Holsinger for mentioning this on his blog!

9 comments:

Sam said...

When I used walkscore a year ago, it was 86. I did it again today and its 83. Its a bit better in that it picked up all the little corner stores in my neighborhood, but not sure why the score number dropped

EcoGeoFemme said...

Mine's 86. I'm actually surprised it's not even higher, since there are few things I can think of that I can't get to on foot. Maybe the Gap. :)

Cool find!

Unknown said...

Mine is 75. Not too shabby! Although it does include quite a few places that are not walkable distances because my neighborhood is bisected by a river, and the walkaround is quite long.

Eugenie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eugenie said...

for my current location, 2, regular "home" is 29 and school is 55.....

totally unrelated but I was urged to share this blog with you by ctk http://junkraft.blogspot.com/

DancingFish said...

I got a 75, however, our neighborhood is pretty unsafe. It is a shame but we can't walk anywhere safely.

Unknown said...

My score is 94. I picked this place based on my ability to walk to the grocery store and work though, so I'm not that surprised. I love my neighborhood! :)

Paulina said...

mine is 9 out of 100! oh dear....

Karli said...

I tried Walkscore and got a 72, but I think they have to do some more quality control. First I had to enter a fake address on a nearby cross-street because it kept picking the wrong place on the map for my home. Then, on closer inspection many of the businesses are incorrectly labeled. For example there is one doctor's office that is labeled as a School and another that is labeled as a Library. And for a hardware store they found Restoration Hardware...not exactly a good place to go if you need paint or some nails. Hopefully it's just my neighborhood, which I know to be pretty un-walkable, that has such troubles.