How walkable is your neighborhood?

How walkable is your house?
Just plug in your own address and see what happens.
Bravo to the programmers!

Comments

[Gomez]

It was great and I liked what I saw, giving my residence a 78... until I plugged in the address of my mother's apartment in the suburban south end of Las Vegas and it gave her place a 75, which belies the heat, the unfriendly traffic and the lengthy, wide streets. I couldn't walk a block in her neighborhood without feeling somewhat miserable, let alone as far as it was pointing out places. It gave my father's house a 60 despite his being located in a dangerous, trashy neighborhood.

It's got promise but it only relies on addresses of places that sells things, no matter what its quality is.

[JRoth]

I agree with my house's 82, but I do wonder how it could take into account the issues Gomez raises.

Of course, environmental conditions are super subjective - I'd rather walk 1/3 mile in the snow than 1/4 mile in the Sun Belt weather (85 & humid or 95 & arid) that my compatriots seem to adore.

Danger, at least, is conceivably a function of available crime stats. Although, if you're poor, it's still better to live in a dangerous neighborhood with nearby amenities than a dangerous neighborhood with little commercial activity.

[Erik]

The house I grew up in has a score in the 40s, which I'd expect from the amenities that are (or aren't) nearby. But the score doesn't seem to take the steep hills or lack of sidewalks into account.

[Anyhoo]

Surprisingly it does beyond the US, despite demanding a ZIP code. A house near the centre of a popular, affluent, pre-car (if not pre-cart) market-town in commuting distance of London gets 58. However this score counts an internet-only firm selling iPod covers as the sole provider of local entertainment, completely overlooking the hall that is cinema, theatre and music venue (when it's not the polling station), just as it ignores the local library in preference for a far smaller, more frequently closed one in a neighbouring village most directly accessible by muddy lanes and paths. The more I look the more I see that is missing, like all the schools, colleges and nearby university (which I wouldn't consider walkable, but is inside the limiting distances used) and any health or fitness centre which doesn't have 'yoga' in the name.

So I guess it could do with some work for sites outside the US to include the basics and stop parks showing up solely as cafes; it also needs some variance in local search terms, as Drug Stores brings up everything nearby branch of one chain, which has "-drug Stores" in the company name, while missing every chemist and pharmacy (oddly all the bars listed have 'bar' in the name, hence the complete lack of pubs).

It's not bad as it identifies the High Street [equiv. to Main Street] as a dense cluster of businesses and business types, but then it's not great either, especially the crow-flies-ism, which they admit negates impedances (but then Google Maps only shows routes accessible by vehicles, and still doesn't show, and often is incapable of finding, the railway station in any given town, so it's hard to work with data that isn't there).

[John Michlig]

I think I can get actual NEGATIVE NUMBERS in my sprawling suburb ...

[Jerry (mouse)]

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.

[DF]

Check out any address around 700 near Park Avenue in Outremont, Montreal. Now THAT is a walkable neighbourhood.