MNN - Mother Nature Network

How walkable is your neighborhood?

 

Walk Score is a great website that will score an address based on how walkable it is -- how easy it is to find nearby grocery stores, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, bookstores, libraries, schools, parks, fitness clubs, hardware stores, clothing & music stores, and drug stores. The higher the score (out of 100), the easier it is to live in that neighborhood without a car.

 

My neighborhood ranks a strong 95 out of 100. I live in the heart of Portland, Maine, a small geographically constrained (we're on a peninsula) city with a vibrant arts and entertainment district and plenty of places to eat, shop, exercise and play.

 

Walk Score is continuing to update their algorithm and just added transit data into their ratings. Their coverage is incomplete though, only the transit agencies that make their transit feeds -- the raw timetables and locations for routes -- open to the public will show up in a Walk Score rating.

 

Walk Score wants everyone to benefit from open transit info and has set up a petition page where you can enter in your information for Walk Score to forward on to your local transit agency asking them to provide public transit feeds. Swing over and sign up, it takes less than a minute and could make a big impact.

 

[Via Worldchanging]

 

 • Walkability city: Portland, Maine

 • Paying more to walk more