Also, it has my old neighborhood and my current neighborhood as nearly equally walkable, which is crazy.
Also also they don't mention store design; you could live next door to a giant mall and not be in a very walkable neighborhood, as was in fact the case in my old neighborhood.
Giving the limitations it has, shouldn't it be consistently overestimating walkability? With the exception of public transportation--which can go either way, and isn't really about *walkability* anyway--all the factors they neglect are things that make it difficult to walk.
If it is simply overestimating, it can have its uses. A low score means essentially, "look, you aren't even meeting the most basic requirements for walkability"
Oh, I guess they sort of do mention that.
One thing, too: the walkability of a neighborhood is heavily impacted by how many people walk in it; there's some feedback that goes on.
Sometimes "first to admit" doesn't exhaust the requirements of intellectual honesty, folks. What you've got here is postal mail with a misleading simple addressing scheme. Just as veryfying anecdata, my mother does not even have an e-mail address.
Nice, I entered [ someplace else I regularly go ] and it scores a big fat zero. Admittedly there's no stores you can walk to, but plenty you can bike to, and it's a great place to go for a nice walk, with all sorts of natural features easily accessible. Definitely not your standard subdivision off a freeway.
Surely we've discussed this here before.
Anyway, I get an 89, and I think it's pretty much right.*
* Let me be the first to acknowledge that this doesn't address the shortcomings.
No offense, but 7 is a bit irrelevant. I mean, Yosemite is a great place for a nice walk, but that doesn't make it even slightly more "walkable" than Manhattan. No one here's a bigger cycling advocate than I am, but I wouldn't consider cycle-ability a substitute for walkability. An add-on, absolutely, but not a substitute.
it's a great place to go for a nice walk
But 'going for a walk' isn't at all what is meant by 'walkability', is it? I mean, the fields behind my godmother's house in rural Missouri are great for going for a walk.
My neighborhood gets a 82 out of 100 for walkability. Unfortunately, I am at the top of a hill with respect to most of the shops so the real walkability is much smaller.
The other option is that real walkability requires a score of 90 or above. My last neighborhood was a 94 and I walked all the time.
Okay, so pwned. But it deserved being said twice!
7, 10: but I'm trying to be contrarian about the site's usefulness. Geez, picky picky.
YES 4 IS RIGHT SHUT UP THAT'S WHY.
I'm actually finding it somewhat frustratingly accurate.
The other option is that real walkability requires a score of 90 or above.
As I said, mine gets an 89, and it's about as effectively walkable as can be.
Doesn't Google Maps now include Terrain? That should be easy enough to implement. I mean, the calculation gets a lot more complex, because you have to look at routing, but the algorithm is pretty simple.
Of course, the same is true for several of those factors - Google knows where the high-speed roads are, and presumably block length is easily derivable. Road width, crime rates, and weather are a bit external to the readily-attached data.
It's all proximity to shops.
My parents' place gets a 52. That's a place with no sidewalks and hills up the butt. My place an 86. Notre Dame gets a 14, presumably because there's no place to go on campus, but given that there are no roads on campus either, it's about as walkable as you get.
Is it possible to get below an 80 in this thing? My college campus gets an 85, despite not having a single grocery store within walking distance.
Meanwhile, my actual home gets a 95. I defy Unfogged to be more walkable.
16: yeah, the house I grew up in gets an 88, and it was completely walkable from about age 8 on. My current location gets a 92 and if it were any more walkable I'd be living in a combination theater/bookstore/grocery/gym/elementary school, built directly underneath a park full of bars.
I'm actually finding it somewhat frustratingly accurate.
The funny thing is that it's broad-brushed enough that even the inaccuracies don't screw it up too badly. While it may be technically true that the Mortuary School down the street has a Library, I don't use it all that much; however, the less specialized public library is a 5-7 minute walk away, so it's a wash. For some reason the school my daughter will walk to this fall doesn't show up either, but the judo studio does.
My office pegs the meter, despite being in a neighborhood that's kind of dead at night.
I'd be living in a combination theater/bookstore/grocery/gym/elementary school, built directly underneath a park full of bars.
You said you're working with developers, right? You've got the vision, they've got the money, and I've got the design skillz. Let's do it!
despite being in a neighborhood that's kind of dead at night.
It's not a gauge of walk-of-shame-ability.
To echo JRoth again, my current address gets only 94 out of 100, which makes me wonder what you'd have to do to get 100. I'm less than 5 minutes from subway, bus, several grocery stores, laundromats, gyms, a post office, and a whole bunch of bars and restaurants. Movie theater is a 15-minute walk-- oh no! I guess I don't have any idea about schools, though.
I defy Unfogged to be more walkable.
I forget, what's more: 95 or 100?
My current home scores a 22, which is about right. If we had had known about this site before we bought our house, it might have been the dealbreaker. Certainly it is right about the main thing that frustrates us about our part of west Cleveland.
As one of the token suburbanites here, I get a 43. (And that is way overestimated, as the distances shown seem to be "as the crow flies" and most of them near me are down a 250 foot cliff and across a freeway.)
Hee, my old house in SF gets an 8. Just you try and tell me the Bay Area's walkable.
Re-checking mine, Walkscore thinks The Library is a library.
(And that is way overestimated, as the distances shown seem to be "as the crow flies" and most of them near me are down a 250 foot cliff and across a freeway.)
Are you up above 28, JP? I actually thought you were some flavor of urbanite.
Even at the high end, I think it's misleading. My place gets a 95, and I am in fact near a ton of restaurants, shops, services, grocery stores, a movie theater and the train, but I couldn't actually manage easily here without a car, and the Ex's place in Chelsea, where she manages just fine without a car, also gets a 95.
OT - I tried to comment in the right thread but failed:
I read The Great Depression & The New Deal: A Very Short Introduction. It was good.
I really like reading these very short introductions. They are excellent to read on the train. The funny thing is that they are good for reading about subjects you are not very interested in because the books are so short.
Here are the ones that I read so far:
The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction
This one is the best that I read. I am amazed at how ignorant I was about the details of this time period. This book reads so well.
It also has changed my viewpoint on foreign policy. America is addicted to intervening in foreign countries. There was a rationale during the cold war; but now we do it because we can. I am now a little queasy about terms like "liberal internationalism". I think we have to go cold turkey.
Other ones I would recommend:
Paul: A Very Short Introduction
The First World War: A Very Short Introduction
Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction
Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
Marx: A Very Short Introduction
Kant: A Very Short Introduction
Ones I would not recommend:
Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction
Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction - This one has a cartoon of a women's libber archaeologist hitting a mainstream archaeologist with a picket sign.
It counts 7-Eleven as a grocery store.
And H&R Block as a school.
That's it, I'm writing a letter to the Times.
And Boston Red Sox as a park! Okay, so it is "Fenway Park", but you just try to go hang out there on the grass.
The house I grew up in scores a 14. Honestly, I can't think of a better candidate for a score of 0.
It counts 7-Eleven as a grocery store.
I don't know whether their algorithm can distinguish between a full grocery and a convenience store - I doubt it - but a big part of minimal walkability is the ability to buy a quart of milk without getting in the car.
37: with a frisbee! That would rule.
Other ones I would recommend:
Paul: A Very Short Introduction
I'm surprised, since most people think John was the more interesting one.
The house I grew up in gets a 28, but it is counting the Jewish Federation as a coffee shop (no lie).
It also counts Jamba Juice as a bar.
I am OK with 7-11s counted as grocery stores. Walking to get milk and ice cream is a big part of walkability.
OMG it counts something called the "Taste and Smell Clinic", which is across the Potomac from the house I grew up in, as a library within walking distance.
When counting parks nearest my old house in SF it includes Alcatraz.
NOT WALKABLE.
Mine also thinks that the bar Waikiki Wally's, because it might have once called itself Waikiki Wally's Sailing School and the internet has recorded that name, is a school.
The path along Lake Mich. in Chicago is I would argue a better park than Alcatraz, but it doesn't count that.
Failure to know that you can only cross the river in places where there are bridges is a pretty big drawback to the "as the crow flies" algorithm.
There is also a difference between "marketing" and "a market" that the software ignores.
This one has a cartoon of a women's libber archaeologist hitting a mainstream archaeologist with a picket sign.
Back in the 70s there was a hot debate in paleoanthropology over whether a certain genus of pig (M-something) correlated between a couple of dig sites - it was important for dating Lucy and her kind. At some major conference, one of the scientists wore a MCP (Male Chauvinist Pig) tie tack, explaining that it meant "M-something Correlates Properly."
It thinks all kinds of weird things are libraries. The local Holocaust Center located inside a JCC, for mine.
It also thinks a video store is a bookstore. However, there is in fact at least one bookstore and library right near their so-called "bookstore" and "library", so it all works out.
It's actually terrible about parks because it counts them from only certain entrances +/or their geographic center. Prospect Park West is not actually a third of a mile from Prospect Park.
Failure to know that you can only cross the river in places where there are bridges is a pretty big drawback to the "as the crow flies" algorithm.
Not necessarily.
I'm going to go ahead and argue that a 3 for this location is overstating things.
32: Good guess JR.
I actually thought you were some flavor of urbanite.
No, I is sub-urbanite devil*. Driving in car every day to kill us all!
*If I did it again, I would not choose this neighborhood, a lot of it for kid reasons,even though that is somewhat why we chose it! (Walkability is great for kids, especially when they get older.)
OK -- One place it was counting as a bookstore was something called "Islamic Books and Tap"!
I was so intrigued, I was tugging my shoes on to get to Islamic Books and Tap! Alas, it's really Islamic Books and Tapes.
Immensely walkable! With one tiny, tiny caveat.
61: LOL
Most people at this address don't get the benefit of that robust score of 48, either.
It's claiming there's an Eddie Bauer within walking distance of my parents' house. I was like, really? So I look at the address and it almost certainly has to be just a dude named Eddie Bauer.
It also includes privately held law firm libraries as libraries, but that's not as funny.
The score for the Statue of Liberty is an almost accurate 2.
So did washer-dreyer really get 100? Because the address I'm sitting at now (my folx' place in Mid-Sized Northeastern College Town) gets 100. And it is indeed a very walkable town, unless you try to cross the main street, in which case you have a very good chance of getting squashed.
Current home: 54.
Place I lived 1991-2001: 28.
Place I lived between 6 and 13 yo: 91.
My apartment: 89
My mom's house: 40
My girlfriend's house: 22
Seems about right, actually. Although upon reading 30 I checked and it does indeed count the bar here called The Library as a library.
Dammit, now that I know how to do the coordinates thing...
Much more accurate number than 63
if it were any more walkable I'd be living in a combination theater/bookstore/grocery/gym/elementary school, built directly underneath a park full of bars.
Don't we all just wish!
Hah -- place in California we moved when I was 13: 5.
68: But after the 26.87 mile hike, Liquid Louie's Swan River Tavern (closest place) seems like just the place you'd need.
Place I lived in Palo Alto: 30-something.
Place I live now: 80-something.
I buy it.
67: I think large parts of Manhattan probably score 100. Both my apartment and my office do.
By contrast, my place only gets a 75, which has a certain degree of truth to it, despite the fact that I walk all over the neighborhood myself. Among the other things to add to ogged's list would be proximity of unusual intersections. For instance, one of the big barriers to better walking in my neighborhood is a horrible 5 or 6-way intersection that's located 2 blox from 2 different freeway on/off ramps. You're taking your life into your hands crossing that monster.
I'm not buying the scale. For me, >= 80 would mean you can easily walk from your house to get every single typical monthly purchase. You can also walk to several options of entertainment and dining.
From goofing around on the site, it seems that you get high scores from having a lot of stuff nearby, but it doesn't seem to take account of the mix of stuff very well
Sifu is a spoilsport. lives on a small raft of oil barrels and MIT woodshop detritus in the middle of the Charles, capsizing any college crew boats that get too close and holding the students for ransom to get food, but is still bitter that he can't get to the movie theater on foot.
78 followup --- i might not have played with it enough, though
Place I lived when I turned 21 scores 97. What's my office? Only 94. Downtown Whitefish Montana beats downtown Washington DC.
i might not have played with it enough, though
Regrets, regrets, everywhere regrets.
78: If that's an 80, then what's the marginal improvement up to 100? Sifutopia?
I don't disagree entirely, but I don't have a sense of what 80 actually gets you in their algorithm to know just how inadequate it is.
I got 45, which is pretty ridiculously low. And most of its data was wrong and/or out of date. Within 3 minutes' walk of my house are at least 3 convenience shops, two primary schools, two parks/playgrounds, at least 3 pubs, and a swimming pool. I'm about half a mile from the town centre, and in between 2 libraries, both a bit less than a mile away.
76: I am bitter, w/d! Why am I only a 98? I am rural over here.
I would like to know more about Inflight Cinema of NY Inc (which is in the Bronx, not LaGuardia as you might have guessed).
My current apartment in Los Angeles gets a 94, which seems about right to me. The last place I lived gets a 85, which is a little high -- there was stuff within distance, sure, as long as you didn't mind walking in the scorching sun with no trees to screen you from about six lanes of traffic, but the constant low level of petty street crime and harassment effectively kept me from doing much walking about.
My last apartment in college: 86
Still pretty much right.
For where I live now, it's a low score and probably accurate -- one small supermarket, one convenience store and one pub within 5 minutes walk, everything else, further. But my previous flat gets 45 also. Which is insane. There are about a dozen restaurants, ten or more pubs, two supermarkets, a dozen or more small grocery stores, a major concert venue, etc. all within 5 minutes walk.
It didn't have any data at all for Budapest. Coverage outside the US may be spotty.
83: The marginal has to do with density. Being able to walk to a single restaurant is a lot different than being able to walk to 25+ (thinking typical dense urban walkable). Similarly, there's a difference between having a convenience store in walking distance, and having a couple of grocers and/or a market.
So I guess what I'm saying is that 80 means you aren't `forced' to drive for day to day things (excepting work, I guess, although that's nice) whereas 100 means you really have no reason to leave your neighborhood.
Under that metric 50 would be typically forced to drive for some things, but not others. 25 would be most things, 10 would mean your nbhd sucks, and you can't do anything.
Transit figures in there somehow, mostly by extending range.
I do not understand this site at all. It must have some very different interpretations of UK amenities. My old college - right in the middle of Oxford - got 78, which is clearly bollocks. Piccadilly Circus does manage 91 though, with 7/11 of the things being searched for less than 100m away. Most people can surely walk further than 100m?
My house scores a 68, which is about how I'd rate it if I left out the two supermarkets, the co-op, the library and the majority of the restaurants, bars, coffeeshops and other businesses in the neighborhood. Oh, and the nearby park and my kids' school. Otherwise, good job, Walkscore!
All the bars and bookstores within walking distance of my house turn out to be at Logan airport. So, No.
Not the highest absolute scores, but the last three places I lived in Houston were 82,88 and 78 respectively.
My current neighbotrhood gets an 88. But my last neighborhood, which was infinitely more walkable, gets an 89. This thing is bullshit.
96 was supposed to say my last neighborhood "only" gets an 89...
my location is 95 i'm kinda glad coz i always walk there late in the evening
57, 61: Sifu, do you have some connection with a certain PNW city known for pulp mill aromas, tractor pulls in the Us-Too Dome, and general ugliness?
And this thing has zero quality control. Who gives a shit about the Bethleham Christian Bookstore? How is that supposed to enhance the walkability of my neighborhood?
91 makes a lot of sense.
I'm pretty surprised by 93. Does it just not see those things, or is it somehow discounting them? From what people have said, it seems to weigh multiples - but you seem to have multiples anyway.
Weird.
I just noticed that it doesn't show the parklet that is on my actual block,?i>. As in, my dog and child can go there without crossing so much as an alley. It's also missing the garage where I take my car and the gas station/convenience store where I buy soda and chips, both of which are across exactly one street from my house. Which is weird since, as I said, I get a good score. Imagine how good if it showed more than 1 of the closest 4 amenities.
93: My house gets a 65, which is on the low side of plausible. They probably didn't give enough credit for the three gas stations within easy walking distance.
The lesson of this thread is that many things, especially including this thing, would be much better if they allowed for peer production. Making the title especially prescient.
Anyway, people, kvetching is fun, but 4 is still right.
Turns out that it's not Heebie who's always right, but commenters who go by h***-**** constructions.
Which is to say, I don't care as much about having tons and tons of shit within theoretical walking distance as I do about having a reasonable number of things around that I'd actually like to walk to. This thing is powered off of google maps, right? So it seems like they could use the database of my google searches for, say, the last three years, and run that through some algorithm to find out what I'm likely to be interested in and create a personal walkability score tailored just for me.
The location of Kobe's indiscretion gets an 86.
I'm trying to produce a peer, but finding them ready-made is a hell of a lot easier.
105 is pretty clever, but I don't think someone outside Google would have that data.
I hope not, anyway.
Oh, and to clarify: having an inspection station/auto repair place within walking distance is awesome.
This thing is powered off of google maps, right? So it seems like they could use the database of my google searches for, say, the last three years,
It uses google maps, but it's not google, and doesn't have access to that information.
It gives my current neighborhood a 46, which is maybe a *little* low, but about right. Old place in Seattle an 88; I would have given it a higher score, but hey. Old place in Canadia, 56.
Apparently I'm way more macho and dedicated to walking than I thought I was. Yay me. And Ogged is a big fat spoiled American wuss.
Does it just not see those things, or is it somehow discounting them?
Somehow just not seeing them—though it looks as though the school is there, in fact—while at the same time including some outdated listings. There are odd omissions; our neighborhood park doesn't appear, for example, but other (further away) parts of the city park system do.
All my old places in college in TX are in the 20-50 range. That shit was not walkable. And all my apartments in Chicago are over 85, with my current place being a 97. Woot. Which is right, because part of the reason I love living there is I barely have to leave the 2-block radius surrounding my house if I don't wanna.
Ogged misspelled "verifying".
I made a typo, you just can't spell "desperate."
So a subdivision with no sidewalks across an 8-lane superhighway from a couple of big-box stores would get a very high walkability rating?
I'd put one in to check, but I never go to such places and don't know any addresses.
The boyfriend's place gets a 98. Which is weird, b/c really, to go proper grocery shopping, you need to take the bus.
118: I think the answer is yes, provided that by "a couple" you mean "lots."
117: You don't know that. Maybe he can't spell "disparate."
I know for a fact that my old place in Seattle was in a *much* more walkable neighborhood that the Space Needle.
That said, though it's fun to quibble with, it certainly seems to work pretty well as a general indicator.
My neighborhood scored a 97, and I did just walk from the courthouse to my office, and may even walk home.
Are there really subdivisions without sidewalks? I'm not sure I've ever seen one.* This probably makes me a bad American.
*except in rural areas, but that's stretching the definition of "subdivision".
119: well, or drive if you're full-blooded American.
114: yep, lots. My grandmother used to live in one.
You're desperate, Ogged. Desperate!
My last three neighborhoods: 95, 95, 97. I can use all the fucking plastic bags I want and eat steak every night and I'm still greener than all of you. I don't even drive any more.
Place I lived in Palo Alto: 30-something.
What god-forsaken corner of Palo Alto were you living in? Of the three places I lived in Palo Alto, the lowest score was an 83, and that place was about a ten-minute walk from Whole Foods. Whole Foods, I say!
Not ranking quality of grocery stores is a problem with this thing too. Near my house, they count the little corner store with the wilted ghetto vegetables as a grocery. You'd have to live on wonder bread, cold cuts, and beer if you wanted to rely on that place.
What god-forsaken corner of Palo Alto were you living in?
You've been there, ogged, remember?
My perfect just-off-Clark St. heart of Andersonville old apt in Chicago only gets a 91.
Fuckin' A yeah. Beer and what now?
My apartment (Manhattan): 98.
My office (Manhattan): 98.
Heart of New England college town: 75.
I expected the last to be higher.
just-off-Clark St. heart of Andersonville old apt in Chicago
That sounds suspiciously like my apartment, oudemia. Freaky.
I'm moving, though.
You've been there, ogged, remember?
Oh yeah, so I have. Not very walkable!
Huh, the place I lived in Humboldt Park gets an 85, but that presumes that you're more prepared than I was to go west; otherwise you have to walk, like, four whole blocks or more to go anywhere.
Ha. Rascher. B/t Clark and Glenwood.
I live in a high rise (which is much more efficient heating-wise) & never drive. I'd be impeccably green if not for air travel, but that's a pretty gaping exception.
Our place gets an 89. That would be fine for someone part mountain goat with a carbon monoxide filtering mutation.
a friend of mine showed me this sight last week (yes, I am that much ahead of of Unfogged), but I'm pretty excited because the walk score now = 28. Come fall = 89. Woohoo! Also I don't have a car so this is especially pertinent. And who cares if the scoring is off, that much of a difference must mean something.
Also, 4 being accurate would definitely explain how my present location got a 28. It lists the closest grocery store as a 7-11. And it's a 20 minute walk!
I got a 45. Everything is walkable, but there's nothing here.
There is no way the place my parents lived in El Cerrito is exactly as walkable as the place they lived in Berkeley. And yet the scores are identical.
Nelson, MN, pop. 50, got a 0 because the very nice tavern restaurant isn't on the net.
144: So they were cheated out of, what? A 5?
I love you, John, but the Upper Plains* are only walkable insofar as you can walk the fuck out of them to civilization.
* I know MN isn't really in that category, but I'm lumping with Elgin.
The bigger town next over got an 85 I think. Completely surrounded by lakes and parks, and lots of retail and restaurants.
This site is really making me dread moving to Unwalkable Northeastern College Town in a few months. Out of the long list of apartments I'm considering so far, the best gets a 66, and I'm unlikely to be able to live there. Another is a 57, only because the site doesn't realize that crossing the major highway separating the apartment from every conceivable sort of shopping is suicidal.
The college campus where I lived in grad school got a pretty low walkability rating, which fits with my experience living there without a car the first two years. There's actually a relatively upscale grocery nearish to some of the units - I eventually moved into one of them, but by then I had a car - but the campus is so huge that other units could be a mile or more away from it.
When I did have a car, there were times when the parking lot was full enough that the distance from my apartment to my car was about the distance between the last sublet I had in New York and the nearest grocery.
Everything old is new again. Let's bash Pitchfork.