[sustran] [World Streets] Toolbox: Walk Score your city

[Eric Britton (Paris, France)]

[http://www.walkscore.com/how-it-works.shtml]
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Here is an interesting tool that Christopher Hart, Director of Urban
and Transit Projects of the Institute for Human Centered Design in
Boston brought to our attention in the last days:- Walk Score

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To quote from their webpage on “How It Works”


Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score
calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores,
restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to
live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking.


What does my score mean? Your Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100.
Here are general guidelines for interpreting your score:
90–100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot
and many people get by without owning a car.

70–89 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.

50–69 = Somewhat Walkable: Some stores and amenities are within walking
distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public
transportation, or car.

25–49 = Car-Dependent: Only a few destinations are within easy walking
range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must.

0–24 = Car-Dependent (Driving Only): Virtually no neighborhood
destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your
car!


The Walk Score™ Algorithm: Walk Score uses a patent-pending system to
measure the walkability of an address. The Walk Score algorithm awards
points based on the distance to the closest amenity in each category.
If the closest amenity in a category is within .25 miles (or .4 km), we
assign the maximum number of points. The number of points declines as
the distance approaches 1 mile (or 1.6 km)—no points are awarded for
amenities further than 1 mile. Each category is weighted equally and
the points are summed and normalized to yield a score from 0–100. The
number of nearby amenities is the leading predictor of whether people
walk. (Your Walk Score may change as our data sources are updated or as
we improve our algorithm. Check out how Walk Score doesn't work.

What do you think makes a neighborhood walkable? We built the Walk
Score algorithm to measure the factors that we think are important to
walkability. What makes a neighborhood walkable to you? Let us know and
we'll publish your answers on our blog.


== end ==






For the rest click to http://www.walkscore.com/






Now the World Streets angle on this. Until now their algorithm works
only in the US. So we got in touch and asked about what would be needed
to make this into an international tool. To which they answered “we are
looking into how we can open source Walk Score to collaborate with
people on making it work better internationally. We're a small, but
hard working, team so we're not there yet, but we hope to be soon.”






So if you have any ideas about how to bring this (or something like it)
to your city, you may want to exchange some thoughts with Mike Maisen
at maisen at frontseat.org . And keep us informed, since I am sure that
many of us living outside the US would like to see how our city stacks
up. (I know I would.)






The Editor




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Posted By Eric Britton (Paris, France) to World Streets at 4/01/2009
07:39:00 AM
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