How Walkable Is Your House?
Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:11AM EDT
See Comments (11)
Gotta love the power of the mash-up. Here's a neat little website that lets you measure how "walkable" your house (or any other address) is: That is, checking how close you are to critical (and not-so-critical, but important) services like grocery stores, restaurants, parks, schools, and libraries.
Give Walk Score a try and you might be surprised at what you'll find. I had no idea, for example, that Munchkinland Day Care was a mere 0.21 miles from me, or that there was such a thing as Billy Goat Hill Park, only 0.62 miles away.
While it's handy to check out how your current home ranks, Walk Score is more useful, I think, for scoping out places you might want to move to. When you're looking around at a new place to live, it can be hard to figure out whether you'll be able to walk for coffee or if you're going to have to haul out the Buick and drive to Starbucks instead. Even if you're just moving around in your home town, the only way to really know how close services are to the place is to drive around and hope you spot everything.
The data isn't perfect (the nearest listed grocery store to Sears Tower is "Amin Candy Store;" its nearest library is "Ernst & Young.") But the 15 seconds it will take you to type in your address are definitely a small price to pay for a few minor inaccuracies. Give Walk Score a try and see how your neighborhood measures up.
UPDATE: The site is very slow today (7/18/2007). If you can't get in now, bookmark this page and try again later. Sorry!
LINK: Walk Score
Comments on How Walkable Is Your House?
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2 Posted by murphpix@verizon.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:30PM EDT Report Abuse
It probably would be interesting if the link worked, but it doesn't, so I'll never know.
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3 Posted by suszz2 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:50PM EDT Report Abuse
Okies, took two times, but, it did work. Very low score for my neighborhood, but, I kinda thought it would be as I live by a pond in the woods, lol. Mistakes? a few. Totaly missed the closest bar by three quaters of a mile. Under libraries, it listed the State Police Academy(got a good chuckle out of that one) which is close enough for me to hear them at the shooting range every Sunday morning as I sip my coffee. Don't forget to expand all, as this gives you more choices. All in all, pretty cool. ; )
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4 Posted by snlongindiana on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:30PM EDT Report Abuse
Really cool link! The concept of walkability is totally lost for most people that I know, but it is very important and our future. I'm so glad that you are bringing this to more people's attention through your blog.
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5 Posted by jairaj on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:27PM EDT Report Abuse
We don't walk in LA PERIOD
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6 Posted by rodellpr on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:47PM EDT Report Abuse
As per other comments, good idea despite current shortcomings both as to program access and omissions. Will you post again when it is working, Chris?
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7 Posted by cnull on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:27PM EDT Report Abuse
working just fine now...
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8 Posted by susan_skinner2000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:50PM EDT Report Abuse
The program worked just fine for me. I got a very low rating but we live out in the country with nothing around us, and everything seemed to be an accurate distance away from me on here. Good idea to get people motivated to go out and do something!
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9 Posted by ppgia on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:18PM EDT Report Abuse
Got an error from the site stating they are "over the alloted Google maps limit". Looks like they need to upgrade.
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10 Posted by kidrowland on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:50PM EDT Report Abuse
It didn't work. It said to many people were looking at it.WHAAA!!!!!!!!!
1 Posted by lillgad on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:51PM EDT Report Abuse
Sounds interesting. Your link did not work. ask google, got web site, entered address and zip code as requested, click go, web site again not found. It would be great if it worked.