What’s Your Walkability?
3 06 2008Much of the Washington DC Metro area is “walkable” meaning that residents can get to many of the things they need without ever having to use more than their legs. Of course living in a pedestrian friendly neighborhood has tons of benefits, but how do you know how walkable your neighborhood really is… why walkscore of course!
We found it really interesting to play around with the site and found some locations that you wouldn’t expect to have such high scores like areas in Northeast and parts of Arlington, in addition to all the areas you would expect to get high marks like Georgetown, Dupont, and Capitol Hill among others.
So why is it so great to be able to walk everywhere (besides the reduction in greenhouse gas)? Well one study found that the average residents of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood are significantly healthier and weigh less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood and higher pedestrian traffic leads to stronger local businesses. [Flickr: VisceralCog]
So what’s your neighborhoods walkability score?
woo. 85/100 . . . just what i thought. factor in the metro, and i’ve got a winner. let’s just hope my landlord doesn’t change our roommates from five to the legal four limit, raising our rents to levels we can’t afford, and forcing us to all move.
very interesting, my place in Ballston gets a 92/100 while my old place in Georgetown is only an 81? maybe it’s the lack of metro and a big grocery store in Georgetown, but I hardly think that’s a bad thing?
97/100…not bad! I guess the 14th & U neighborhood really does have it all.
Woohoo! 98/100. Adams Morgan rocks!
alexa - i’m in ballston, too . . . how is it that my score is lower than yours?
Not sure, but the scores are based on exact address, not city, so maybe I am closer to the Giant or parks or restaurants or whatever makes the score higher?
I live near the Quarterdeck in Rosslyn and I only got a 68! Disappointing.
That thing is way way way off I live near Noma and i got an 83 there is nothing around there. It keeps mixing up NE & NW with SW & SE it said I have a CVS on the next block down from my house there is nothing there. I tried four different address in dc and they all gave me stuff that was not around there. I type in the address of a friend who lives near me and it said my address was a coffee shop. It may work in areas other than dc where you dont have the same street in 4 different quadrants but its kinda screwed up.