Fri, July 18, 2008
Most Walkable
One solution to soaring gas prices: walk there. A new website that rates how walkable city neighborhoods are gave Boston the number three slot. The site has a nifty mapping feature tied into Google Local that rates "walkability" on the basis of proximity to amenities: parks, restaurants, grocery stores, and the like.
Walk Score allows you to type in an address or zip code; it rates the nearby area for walkability by determining how many amenities are nearby. The logic is reasonable: if things people need are an easy walk from where they live or work, they’re likely to walk there. As the site’s home page notes, “With gas at $4 a gallon, there’s never been a better time to live in a walkable neighborhood.”
Areas are rated on a scale from one to 100. Boston overall scored 79, while San Francisco and that very large city on the Hudson River scored 86 and 83, respectively. It seems to me that allowing for the terrain in San Francisco would have raised Boston’s relative ranking, but no one asked me.
Cambridgeport, our little neighborhood in Our Fair City, scored a whopping 94, rating the site’s ranking as a “Walker’s Paradise.”
Walk Score’s creators acknowledge that there are several flaws in its algorithm that need work, including the fact that its scores are not adjusted for proximity to public transit, street design, crime, terrain, or weather. Still, it’s a good first-pass effort and a very cool idea. It’s still true, as the Mills Brothers observed a good while ago, that walking is good for the heart, shoemakers, and lovers of art.
Note to my readers who majored in English: You may be objecting (as Microsoft Word did when I drafted this post) that “walkable” is a bogus word. But Mirriam-Webster dates its use back to 1736, so that should count for something. Besides, give me some credit for slipping in a zeugma....
