Deep walkability: how’s your suburb?
Walkscore website (I don't actually live right in the CBD)
You’ve probably heard of the idea of “walkability“, that is, whether or not a place has decent footpaths and bikepaths that lead to shops and services and interesting places within walking or biking distance. There’s a few websites out there that measure the walkability of the place where you live, like Walkscore (which does the maps for Oz but not the whole lot, might be a project for someone to make an Aussie version!).
But Alex Steffen wrote a piece over at Worldchanging.com to bring up the idea of “deep walkability“. Walkscore measures your proximity to useful places, but deep walkability isn’t just about how close you are to things. It’s about the quality of your walking or riding journey, and if there’s anywhere worth going to.
Walkability is really important to me, because I don’t have a driver’s licence. Walkscore gives my home a score of 55/100 – ‘somewhat walkable’. It gives my old place where I rented a score of 68/100. But I like my current home much better because I can get around much easier here than when I was in my old rental.
What’s the difference? It’s what Steffen talks about – the quality of the journey. My old rental was on a busy road in a less-than-nice area, it had buses on funny schedules, and services I didn’t need. My current home is in a nicer area, and closer to a train station, which then gives me access to anywhere on the train line.
In 10 minutes I can walk to:
- a Post Office
- a chemist
- a deli
- a bottleshop
- a butcher and a baker (no candlestick makers!)
- a small local pub
- 2 parks where I can jog
- a primary school (not that I need it)
- a train station
By using the train station, I can reach in 20 minutes:
- my dentist
- my doctor
- a major shopping centre with a cinema, restaurants and a pub
- a major hospital
- the Burswood casino and Dome (concerts, etc)
- the city centre: shops, restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres, all sorts of services who have offices there, 2 libraries, art galleries and museums, etc.
If I want to take longer, I can catch another train or a bus to my work, to the beach, even leave the city and head out to Mandurah. I don’t really have any reason to go to Mandurah, but it’s nice to know I can if I like 
Just by moving over one suburb, I increased the deep walkability of my home. It was one of the big selling points of our house, actually.
I’m curious if you think the Walkscore for your home is accurate for your experiences. Give it a go, and leave a comment (or blog about it at your own site – link back if you do so I can find your post!).
I think a lot of our cities are very car-dependent, but there are places which have really got it right. It’d be interesting to see what things people value being close to.
13 Comments
Want to know when this site has a new post? Just choose one of the links below to receive an email notification or add Go Greener to your feed reader.
Subscribe by Email
Subscribe in a reader
Mine came up as 55 – but it didn’t look very accurae. It missed my local park, school, and pub(bar) – all within 500m.
I also have a train station around 400m away. Its why we chose the area (and that there is green space within walking distance). I agree that being able to walk (or atleast ride) to most needs is so impotant.
I’m not sure, but I think the accuracy depends a lot on whether Google Maps has had the services added to their database. I’m pretty sure local govts and businesses can tell Google about it if they’ve been missed.
Mine gets an 86! I think the “transit data” bit doesn’t work in Oz, but we have a train station (with three lines going through it, and express trains to the city that take 12 mins), a tram stop outside our door, and buses to all over the place including a “smartbus” (http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/timetables/smartbus/)
86 is fantastic! especially if the transport stuff isn’t working for you. Melbourne’s public transport is pretty good stuff.
The transit data works in Perth, trains, buses, etc are all there – I wonder if the site relies on the organisation submitting data themselves.
My (inner city, 150 year old) suburb
scored only 58 points which I can’t
believe! I’ve never driven so one of the
reasons we bought a house here is
because of the local shops. We’re also
only 3 km from the Adelaide CBD. Every-
thing I need is within walking or
cycling distance – even a candlemaker
(well, Dusk, they SELL candles!). I’ve
taken this test before and always been
surprised at the score – I wonder what
criteria they base walkability on?
Woohoo! I got 97! I’m not at all surprised though, I live in the inner city of a small city of only 200, 000 people. Everything is close to our place.
Honestly? I think it should be higher! I joke that the only thing I need to leave my neighborhood for is my obscure contact lens solution. I think they should take into account the 3 Community Car locations within half a mile of my house too!
85
I think Alex Steffen’s got a point then – proximity isn’t the only measure, it’s also if there’s stuff you *want* to get to, or can use public transport or community cars to expand your range easily. Still, at least Walkscore is making an effort to promote not-driving, I guess a lot of people don’t even think about walking anywhere.
In addition to the issue of public transport, some of my blog readers wondered about safety – how, if at all, do they measure how *safe* you feel walking your neighborhood?
Exactly – and it’s such a personal thing too, I feel safe in some areas my mum might not, for example. A walkability score can really only be a starting point, I think.
My present address gets a score of 46% while my previous address only scores 37%, yet I found the previous place more walkable, though I think this is a very personal judgement (and both scores are pretty pathetic, in my opinion). I was closer to things *I* wanted to be close to, not things like pubs and cinemas. I’m very jealous of my daughter who lives in London, because her address scores 100%!
Wow, I can only *dream* of 100% – goes to show that big cities have a lot of advantages, I guess!
Mt Hawthorn here in WA got 80, not too bad! It definitely has a lot of facilities within walking distance, which is one reason we bought it