What is your neighborhood's WalkScore?

[they don't love you like i love you]

http://www.walkscore.com

My address gets an 83, my neighborhood an 85. Pretty accurate. Love the heat maps.

Their criteria is a little misleading though, if you want to be mostly or entirely car-independent Nicollet Island is most certainly NOT in the top 5 neighborhoods in Minneapolis to live in and Cedar-Riverside most certainly isn't unless you live right near the light rail, or plan on never leaving Cedar-Riverside. And Downtown West is most certainly not the most walkable neighborhood unless you can afford to do your day-to-day shopping in downtown.

Loring Park and Lowry Hill East's rankings are dead on though.

[RI]

My home is a 6. It's 20 minutes by car to the nearest store of any kind.

My college apartment is a 68.

[fezzyfestoon]

86 seems a touch low for being two blocks from one of the best streets in the country for wandering and eating.

[free my dawg]

5. I live in small-town NH. There's a general store about 5 minutes away.

[Adam Griffin]

8.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

58.  However, their methodology is largely bogus.  Distances are determined as the crow flies, which means a child-care center (classified as educational for some reason) which is .1 mile in a straight line, but well over a mile by street gave me full credit for having a school nearby.  Also, they don't seem to consider having a church within walking distance at all important, but coffee shops are so important they have a category all their own.

[Lief 🗽]

100. NYC rules.

[they don't love you like i love you]

58.  However, their methodology is largely bogus.  Distances are determined as the crow flies, which means a child-care center (classified as educational for some reason) which is .1 mile in a straight line, but well over a mile by street gave me full credit for having a school nearby.  Also, they don't seem to consider having a church within walking distance at all important, but coffee shops are so important they have a category all their own.

Take into account what type of demographic is likely to not own a car and use this site...

However yeah there are some flaws in the methodology. Nicollet Island's high score is a great example, it's full of bars and stores, but it's also quite small, and because the bridges aren't very walk-friendly, you basically have to use a car to be able to leave it and do something like go to a movie. Even the public transit in that area isn't all that great.

[Lief 🗽]

Their definition of supermarket is also pretty horrible. They count the crappy bodega like a minutes walk from my building as a grocery store. The closest real grocery stores (a Whole Foods and a Fairway) aren't really in walking distance.

[bedstuy]

95. 

But, they really don't update or verify their data at all.  A bunch of the stores they list in my neighborhood have closed and they haven't updated to add new ones. 

They also list a baseball park that closed in 1880.  That's just laughable. 

[Mopsus]

I live in the country, so... 0? It would take well over an hour to walk to the nearest gas station, and to get to the nearest town would take several hours on foot.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Their definition of supermarket is also pretty horrible. They count the crappy bodega like a minutes walk from my building as a grocery store. The closest real grocery stores (a Whole Foods and a Fairway) aren't really in walking distance.

Yeah for me it counts a Vietnamese grocery store. There is a supermarket that's it OK to walk TO close enough to me, but if you buy any significant number of groceries walking BACK carrying them will not be pleasant.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

28.

[Joe Republic]

6.

Mt. Charleston Lodge (.61 miles away) most certainly should not qualify as a grocery store, however, unless you count the vending machine in the hotel lobby.  The closest actual store of any kind is about 20 miles away.

[Modernity has failed us]

65

[Ban my account ffs!]

yeah... my neighborhood is probably 0.  The only reason to walk in my neighborhood is for the purpose of exercise.

But I'm close enough that everything is available within a 5 minute drive... so while it's not walkable in the context of shopping, etc... my environmental impact is lower than your average suburbanite who drives much longer distances for basic services.

And for the trade offs that I have living here far outweigh, in my opinion, living in a dense inner city neighborhood where I can walk everywhere (though I've been in that situation and it is kinda liberating in a way).

[Ban my account ffs!]

As I suspected... my walkscore is 8.  But I have all basic services within 2 miles of me.  But the closest is 0.94 miles (a gas station)... so, I live in a "bikeable" neighborhood.. but not a walkable one.

[bedstuy]

They also list a baseball park that closed in 1880.  That's just laughable.  

Hahaha, seriously?

There was basically no remnant of the park by 1890 and it has been covered with city streets and houses since then.  I don't understand how that's an amenity.

[angus]

yeah... my neighborhood is probably 0.  The only reason to walk in my neighborhood is for the purpose of exercise.

But I'm close enough that everything is available within a 5 minute drive... so while it's not walkable in the context of shopping, etc... my environmental impact is lower than your average suburbanite who drives much longer distances for basic services.

And for the trade offs that I have living here far outweigh, in my opinion, living in a dense inner city neighborhood where I can walk everywhere (though I've been in that situation and it is kinda liberating in a way).

there are always trade-offs.  I'm not sure that this site's algorithms are taking such things into account.  You probably live very close to an international airport.  For me, I'd have to walk about 700 meters to a bus stop, take that bus to a train station in the city, then pay 20 dollars to take a train from Lancaster to Philadelphia, then get off at 30th street station in Philadelphia and take a commuter rail from there to Philadelphia International Airport, then I could fly away.  This algorithm only considers the fact that I can walk less than a thousand meters to get to an international airport.  That sort of thing.  

Ah, it's cute, and I admire the engineering and mathematical skills and labor that went into it, but you really shouldn't read too much into it.  When we lived in Northeastern Iowa I used to fly from MSP regularly, and as I recall my uncle's neighborhood (in Saint Paul near Saint Thomas University) was more "walkable" in a real sense than the neighborhood that I live in now, and much closer to an international airport, even though you'd have to take a car to get there.

Of course, Winter, for example, in your part of the country is about eight months long, and the place is only "walkable" for a very short period.  I doubt that this algorithm takes that sort of thing into account either.  

Still, it's a fun exercise.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Still, it's a fun exercise.

Now we'll never find out Bushie's WalkScore.

[morgieb]

82 for address, 87 for neighbourhood.

[Hatman 🍁]

They do it by ward in Ottawa, so it's misleading as wards are made up of a number of neighbourhoods. My ward got a 58.  Our previous ward was the best in the city at 89.  Our apartment got a 62.

[angus]

They do it by ward in Ottawa, so it's misleading as wards are made up of a number of neighbourhoods. My ward got a 58.  Our previous ward was the best in the city at 89.  Our apartment got a 62.

If you right-click on any point on the map--at least in Windows OS; I have no idea how to do anything on an apple computer, or whether they're useful for anything other than decoration for your office--then you get an option to get a score "at this point."  On the nearest streetcorner to where I live, I get a score of 71.  Try doing that on your street or on your exact block if you can find it. 

[Oldiesfreak1854]

First, what do you mean by neighborhood?
I got 0 for address and 75 for my hometown.

[TJ in Oregon]

My neighborhood is a 62. It's very suburban, but close to a huge mall A decent fraction of the distance to stores would be the mall parking lot.