Comments on: Website helps identify walker-friendly neighborhoods

By: Ethel

Ethel — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 23:13:23 +0000

DH and I just started living car-free (well, it’ll be official once we sell our broken vehicle), and we have a score of 65 at our neighborhood. Although it’s actually pretty walkable for our needs, we’ve been practicing to go car-free for a couple months.

I’ll be looking at this site when we need to move. Very handy.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 02:50:26 +0000

I hate the car. The car irks me. Here in New Orleans its necessary, not only because you can’t walk unless you’re willing to ruin your office attire with stinky sweaty mugginess. I used to live right at zip 39211, Jackson MS, which gets the all-time low walk-score of 3 out of 100.

I love the idea of a walk-score. I’m going to keep this in mind. That website currently hits on the internet keyword “walk score” so you don’t even have to bookmark it! Talk about uncluttered!

By: lurkette

lurkette — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 21:03:58 +0000

That was interesting! Though I agree that the score for my place was accurate (82), like previous posters, the businesses listed were completely wacky. Including: counting a social services office (which deals with food stamps) as a restaurant, counting a 7-11 and three small liquor stores as grocery stores, skipping the six-restaurant row a block away, counting a travel broker and a law office as libraries, and adding a movie theater were there is nothing of the sort.

Nonetheless, a really interesting idea and good results, even if the details were a little zany!

By: Debbie

Debbie — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:32:28 +0000

I love this site. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. I’m definitely using it next time I move because after living near friends, living near cool stuff to walk to is my number 1 priority.

I checked my place, which I think of as fairly good (48), my favorite places I used to live (74 and 82), my parent’s place in boring suburbia (31-they have more stuff nearby than I knew!), and my sister in empty suburbia (11).

My real number is higher because I live less than a mile from an old airport that is being redeveloped, and not even the streets are on google yet. Also, as someone said, it’s good to see what KIND of stores (mine are mostly ethnic food stores, much better than corner stores), etc. you have. I found some places I never knew existed, but they are not for me anyway.

By: chelle

chelle — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:15:06 +0000

well, i totally live with a car…somehow and sometimes it keeps me frustrated on spending a lot on maintenance and car expenses…but the important fact is, ‘i do live with a car’…i traveled distances from home to work, i managed to go shop with it…and absolutely, for now i was facing car problems…i just have to look for cheaper subaru auto parts..perhaps people looking for car-less lifestyle saves much…

By: Lizzie

Lizzie — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:49:07 +0000

I’d give it great marks for accuracy - although it makes me marvel that I moved from a neighborhood that was truly 100 (Upper West Side in Manhattan) to a house that’s a 0…

By: s.b.

s.b. — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:13:45 +0000

Rachel - did you read the “how it doesn’t work” page? It’s not their fault.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:08:53 +0000

I’ll have to agree with Rachel. Score seems accurate but with the exception of the places to eat the amenities were skewed to say the least. What they called a bookstore is an adult store and I wouldn’t consider a convenience store a grocery store. Plus I wouldn’t walk much farther than a block in my neighborhood after dark.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:50:27 +0000

Although the score for my neighbourhood seemed pretty accurate, the data used to get that score was entirely wrong — there were movie theatres, coffee shops and schools listed that didn’t exist, an ice cream places was counted as a bar, a wiccan shop as a bookstore, and two libraries close by were ignored in favour of one blocks away. They say they get their information from Google, but something is definitely going wrong.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:16:38 +0000

Looks like we killed it