Frinklin sent me something ever so fun to play with.

Head over to the Walk Score website and enter in your address. It will map our your home and surroundings and the "walkability" of your neighborhood, taking into consideration the convenience of the nearby destinations. You receive a score from 0 to 100 depending on just how fully walkable things really are. Their scale is broken down like so:

90 - 100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.
70 - 90 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.
50 - 70 = Some Walkable Locations: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car.
25 - 50 = Not Walkable: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must.
0 - 25 = Driving Only: Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!

My score was 57, which is reasonable. We have a lot of restaurants and a few shops as well as a hospital (if one might walk there) well within walking range, but grocery stores are pushing the limits of walkability when you start to talk about carrying a lot of stuff back with you. I would assume that most of Tacoma is fairly walkable.

You can actually get a map to place on your blog. I thought it would be funny to see the walkability of my parent's neighborhood. They live out in the boonies:

They scored a 6. Not so walkable there.

Posted by: Ensie at 12:31 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 301 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Now, there's a Sizzler within three miles so it's not all bad! My mom's address scored a 25. A little better than your parents but still pretty awful. The house I grew up in scored an 8. I'd say that's about right!

Posted by: Jenyum/Tacomamama at May 24, 2008 08:23 AM (LMqvC)

2 We got a 51 ... but two restaurants listed aren't really there. I'm guessing there's a N/S switch going on. Though I'd love to have Gateway to India and a teriyaki as close as it SAYS. I know I'm in the suburbs of the Proctor District ... sigh.

Posted by: tacomachickadee at May 24, 2008 09:49 AM (nWV/l)

3 The house I grew up in got a 2, but I think only because it counted an asparagus farm a mile away as a restaurant. Otherwise I think they'd be at 1 or 2. The nearest thing of any category was several miles away. In case any of you wonder why I'm perfectly happy in T-town with a score of 51 ...

Posted by: tacomachickadee at May 24, 2008 09:53 AM (nWV/l)

4 That's a great tool to objectively determine how "walkable" an area is. As an example, Fife has installed some great new sidewalks and treees but the distances between uses is so large its hard to walk to anything so every trip ends up being one in a car.

Posted by: Erik B. at May 24, 2008 10:53 AM (OVI7B)

5 Wow! Our site for cohousing (1002-4 S 12th St) got an 85! They are a bit funky on the search criteria though. Under schools, they listed Bates about 10 times (probably for the different "majors", and an LLC with Park in the name was listed as A PARK! All together, though, I'd say we picked a good place. Still looking for members!

Posted by: Earthdaughter at May 24, 2008 11:08 AM (JllhC)

6 Walk Score: 5 out of 100

Posted by: Eden at May 24, 2008 02:25 PM (BDCWt)

7 My home address gets a 60, which is better than last year when it left out even more, but it still leaves out Dave's market and Lowell elementary, which would probably boost it considerably. Lowell is actually much closer than Grant, but both are easily walkable.

Posted by: Jen at May 24, 2008 05:52 PM (LMqvC)

8 Yeah, there are definitely some glitches in the alogorithem (is that how you spell that?) that is used to figure out the acutal walkability. But it's still interesting to look at. My parent's house actually has some sort of odd "Quality Hydroseeding" place listed as a school nearby, which I don't believe has anything to do with education.

Posted by: ensie at May 24, 2008 09:35 PM (0Y/90)

9 Just for fun, I looked around on walkscore's site and found this interesting information on how they arrive at their scoring. http://www.walkscore.com/how-it-doesnt-work.shtml We can actually help them "fix" some of the errors in our neighborhoods and improve the accuracy for Tacoma. (P.S. It's algorithm.)

Posted by: Patricia J. Menzies at May 25, 2008 05:24 AM (JllhC)

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