A Walkability Score For Any Address | Hacker News Reader

A Walkability Score For Any Address

walkscore.com

10 pointsnikhilpandit5 comments

This might be well served by adding yelp or other business review sources to the calculation.

For instance, my neighborhood shows a fantastic score (99 - Walker’s Paradise), but most of the locations listed are subpar at best. The score seems to be primarily based on access to transportation and walking distance of local establishments regardless of how much anyone would actually WANT to walk to any of them.

Mind you, I love my neighborhood Because of the fantastic access to the rest of the city, without being a social center. I'm just stating that very fact isn't reflected well

You can set priorities with the excellent walkshed.org.

just saw this post after I posted, sound like exactly what I was suggesting, will check it out.

I agree. When I was looking at apartments and was using walkability, I didn't think it had the sophistication I was looking for, such as using yelp to rank to get a weight of a walkable location, your sugggestion.

Also, it seemed to limit the stores and location used to only a few blocks. I was 6 blocks away (a walkable distance) and an area that had EVERYTHING I could need. That should value for something, and it didn't (seem to).

Furthermore, I think people have different values for what they care about being walkable. At a previous apartment, there was a cafe with a full menu that was literally 30 feet away from my apartment. It wasn't fantastic food, but the fact that it was so convenient was huge for me. I would like to have the ability to dial up and dial down what I value in the walkability score. For instance, I don't care about clothing stores being walkable, because I barely ever do that. I would bet a lot of women would. Maybe that is making a UI that is too complex, and it's easier to just roll up in to 1 score and make it simple? I'm not sure, but that's something I personally would like to see.

Doesn't work for me.. I live at a University in a building development designed for reduced car usage and I get 43. My parent's place in the worst kind of suburbia hell gets 53.

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