What's Your Walk Score?

Here's an interesting Google Maps mash-up.  The main tenet of Walkscore.com is to help people "find walkable places to live."  Why?  Because walking benefits your health, community, and environment.  Interesting, eh?  (Yes, I was Canadian for four years of my life)  Just enter in your address and Walk Score will calculate a score based on your proximity to important landmarks, such as schools, parks, grocery stores, restaurants, theaters, drug stores, etc.  A final score from 0 to 100 is computed.  The higher the number the more accessible you are to locations desirable for convenient living.  The calculations are based strictly on the number of destinations and the geographic distances.  Factors such as neighborhood crime levels, topography (think San Francisco hilly streets), and inconvenient streets with heavy traffic are not taken into consideration.  Nor are the destinations weighted in importance.  For example, an ice cream parlor is considered just as important as a drug store.  Calculate your Walk Score.

Comments

[Wella]

I believe that walk score is cool, but nowadays more and more people prefer to drive cars. Homes are often located in an area where some establishments are easier to get to by car than on foot. I've recently found a type of service on drivescore.fizber.com which is called Drive Score. It shows a map of what establishments are in your neighborhood and calculates a Drive Score based on the number of places within a convenient driving distance. It doesn’t mean that drive score is better than walk score – they are equal and both necessary in the modern world!