seaskyfan
06-12-2008, 03:10 PM
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/366753_walkscore12.html
Site ranks walkability of Seattle neighborhoods
People are looking to park the car and stretch their legs
By JENNIFER LANGSTON
P-I REPORTER
When Scott Arbeit relocated from Boston, the software architect wanted to live in an urban, walkable neighborhood but wasn't intimately familiar with Seattle.
Not quite sold on downtown, he also had trouble imagining a night life in West Seattle or Phinney Ridge. So he used a Seattle Web site that gives addresses a "Walk Score" based on proximity to grocery stores, restaurants, movie theaters, hardware stores, parks, libraries and other amenities.
That same site now ranks Seattle's 77 most and least walkable neighborhoods -- from Pioneer Square at the top to residential Blue Ridge at the bottom.
When launched last year, the Web site was a novelty -- a fun way to feel smug about a neighborhood's high score or affronted that the site overlooked a favorite breakfast spot. But with growing interest in less car-dependent, more economical lifestyles, its developers are noticing more people using the scores to choose their next home or neighborhood.
"We're actually getting more people (interested in moving). It must be gas prices or more environmental awareness because more people are really saying 'enough is enough,' " said Mike Mathieu, founder of Front Seat, the software company that produced the site.
Rankings depend largely on neighborhood boundaries, and how many residential areas are lumped in with business districts. Compact neighborhoods with abundant businesses -- where people don't have to rely on automobiles to do errands or eat -- are increasingly seen as a way to combat climate change and oil dependence, and reduce obesity risks.
Fifty-two percent of Seattleites live in neighborhoods with a Walk Score of 70 or above -- "very walkable" on the site. Bill Gates' Medina house has a dismal score of 11, while the Fremont Troll is located in a walkers' paradise with a score of 92.
Arbeit found his ideal home after typing in the address of a Ballard townhouse for rent. The computer spat out a perfect Walk Score of 100.
He's no anti-car zealot, relishing cross-country drives, but in everyday life, he's happier ditching the car and walking to grocery stores, movies or to buy a late-night cupcake.
Arbeit discovered Ballard Avenue -- with its historic buildings chock full of taverns, restaurants, wine bars, plant stores, clothing shops, antiques and the Sunday farmers market -- a week after he moved in.
"I busted out laughing as I was walking down the street because this was better than I even knew," said the 38-year-old who works for Microsoft.
But Walk Score has its flaws, since it's built on a Google database that doesn't always reflect up-to-the minute changes; a school listing may turn out to be a storefront business offering karate lessons.
"It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have now, which is no real data and only an intuitive sense of how things are going," said Clark Williams-Derry, research director for Sightline, a sustainability think-tank in Seattle.
And scores also don't reflect other factors: hills, blocks' length, crime rates, public transportation, water bodies or freeways blocking the way.
"This really is a measure of the potential to live a less car-dependent lifestyle," Mathieu said. "It's not meant to reflect whether there are flowers blooming where you're walking. It's more the things that make up everyday life -- are they close enough to you?"
Mathieu, a former Microsoft manager and Internet entrepreneur, has funded the four-person company whose mission is to promote social good through software. In the last year, it produced 14 different ideas -- from Web sites allowing people to buy carbon offsets at gas stations to utility bills that promote conservation by comparing consumers' water and electricity usage.
But Walk Score is the one that caught on. When developers forwarded the link to a few friends last July, it went viral and had 100,000 hits the next day, melting servers.
Now, condo developments such as the Trace Lofts in the Pike/Pine corridor advertise their perfect scores to potential buyers who want to be untethered from automobiles.
"These are people looking for the most up-and-coming type of community," said Jim Goldberg, client services director for the project. "If you drive into our parking garage at any time of day, there are a lot of cars parked there."
Walkable hotspots
Maps on the site show hotspots of walkability in nearly every neighborhood.
Even in Laurelhurst, with a relatively low Walk Score of 56, a low-slung retail strip along Northeast 45th Street ranks as quite walkable.
Erka Gardner, who lives near that strip in UW graduate student housing, was out in a spitting rain this week, pushing a stroller with her 15-month-old daughter aboard encased in a plastic bubble.
It doesn't look like a great walking neighborhood, with seven lanes of traffic whizzing by and FedEx vans blocking the sidewalk while a parking-lot jam clears.
But Gardner walks a couple of miles each day, often buying groceries or visiting U-Village on foot. The area has a great kids' shoe store, she said, and a consignment shop with quilts, used baby clothes, and vintage rocket lunchboxes.
She and her husband wanted a neighborhood where they could walk and commute by bike, but didn't want to be downtown with a baby.
Walkability rankings to guide her search "would have been great," she said. "Especially with gas prices, it's important to us."
The lifestyle clearly isn't for everyone -- with better schools, mountain views or larger homes trumping convenient walking-destinations for some.
To the east, Laurelhurst is a residential neighborhood of immaculately landscaped homes and driveways big enough to play basketball in. It's possible to drive for four miles on tangled streets without seeing a single business.
The priciest areas of Laurelhurst, Windermere and View Ridge rank as almost entirely car dependent, a fact that wouldn't shock anyone who chose to buy there.
The original neighborhood
Pioneer Square, which has the city's highest Walk Score, has the bones for a great walkable neighborhood: two-lane streets, wide sidewalks, tree-lined medians and shops selling everything from high-end furniture to juggling supplies.
"It's the original Seattle neighborhood," said Ryan Romaneski, executive director of the Pioneer Square Community Association. "I think it helps make our case that this community can handle more density without having to rely on single-occupancy vehicles."
Ironically, what the city's most walkable neighborhood doesn't have is a lot of people living there. The city is considering a major rezone of south downtown to allow taller buildings and encourage much denser residential development.
Randy Koch, a storekeeper at Cuttysark Nautical Antiques, said while that could boost business, it could also drive up prices and erode the area's affordability. "Everything seems to be geared towards Microsofties these days -- they are the royalty of the region," he said.
But Williams-Derry argues that tools like Walk Score demonstrate how new urban developments can benefit neighborhoods -- if they incorporate services and businesses that people actually want.
"If you see this is actually going to drive up my Walk Score and make my life more convenient, some of that (opposition) is going to vanish," he said.
Site ranks walkability of Seattle neighborhoods
People are looking to park the car and stretch their legs
By JENNIFER LANGSTON
P-I REPORTER
When Scott Arbeit relocated from Boston, the software architect wanted to live in an urban, walkable neighborhood but wasn't intimately familiar with Seattle.
Not quite sold on downtown, he also had trouble imagining a night life in West Seattle or Phinney Ridge. So he used a Seattle Web site that gives addresses a "Walk Score" based on proximity to grocery stores, restaurants, movie theaters, hardware stores, parks, libraries and other amenities.
That same site now ranks Seattle's 77 most and least walkable neighborhoods -- from Pioneer Square at the top to residential Blue Ridge at the bottom.
When launched last year, the Web site was a novelty -- a fun way to feel smug about a neighborhood's high score or affronted that the site overlooked a favorite breakfast spot. But with growing interest in less car-dependent, more economical lifestyles, its developers are noticing more people using the scores to choose their next home or neighborhood.
"We're actually getting more people (interested in moving). It must be gas prices or more environmental awareness because more people are really saying 'enough is enough,' " said Mike Mathieu, founder of Front Seat, the software company that produced the site.
Rankings depend largely on neighborhood boundaries, and how many residential areas are lumped in with business districts. Compact neighborhoods with abundant businesses -- where people don't have to rely on automobiles to do errands or eat -- are increasingly seen as a way to combat climate change and oil dependence, and reduce obesity risks.
Fifty-two percent of Seattleites live in neighborhoods with a Walk Score of 70 or above -- "very walkable" on the site. Bill Gates' Medina house has a dismal score of 11, while the Fremont Troll is located in a walkers' paradise with a score of 92.
Arbeit found his ideal home after typing in the address of a Ballard townhouse for rent. The computer spat out a perfect Walk Score of 100.
He's no anti-car zealot, relishing cross-country drives, but in everyday life, he's happier ditching the car and walking to grocery stores, movies or to buy a late-night cupcake.
Arbeit discovered Ballard Avenue -- with its historic buildings chock full of taverns, restaurants, wine bars, plant stores, clothing shops, antiques and the Sunday farmers market -- a week after he moved in.
"I busted out laughing as I was walking down the street because this was better than I even knew," said the 38-year-old who works for Microsoft.
But Walk Score has its flaws, since it's built on a Google database that doesn't always reflect up-to-the minute changes; a school listing may turn out to be a storefront business offering karate lessons.
"It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have now, which is no real data and only an intuitive sense of how things are going," said Clark Williams-Derry, research director for Sightline, a sustainability think-tank in Seattle.
And scores also don't reflect other factors: hills, blocks' length, crime rates, public transportation, water bodies or freeways blocking the way.
"This really is a measure of the potential to live a less car-dependent lifestyle," Mathieu said. "It's not meant to reflect whether there are flowers blooming where you're walking. It's more the things that make up everyday life -- are they close enough to you?"
Mathieu, a former Microsoft manager and Internet entrepreneur, has funded the four-person company whose mission is to promote social good through software. In the last year, it produced 14 different ideas -- from Web sites allowing people to buy carbon offsets at gas stations to utility bills that promote conservation by comparing consumers' water and electricity usage.
But Walk Score is the one that caught on. When developers forwarded the link to a few friends last July, it went viral and had 100,000 hits the next day, melting servers.
Now, condo developments such as the Trace Lofts in the Pike/Pine corridor advertise their perfect scores to potential buyers who want to be untethered from automobiles.
"These are people looking for the most up-and-coming type of community," said Jim Goldberg, client services director for the project. "If you drive into our parking garage at any time of day, there are a lot of cars parked there."
Walkable hotspots
Maps on the site show hotspots of walkability in nearly every neighborhood.
Even in Laurelhurst, with a relatively low Walk Score of 56, a low-slung retail strip along Northeast 45th Street ranks as quite walkable.
Erka Gardner, who lives near that strip in UW graduate student housing, was out in a spitting rain this week, pushing a stroller with her 15-month-old daughter aboard encased in a plastic bubble.
It doesn't look like a great walking neighborhood, with seven lanes of traffic whizzing by and FedEx vans blocking the sidewalk while a parking-lot jam clears.
But Gardner walks a couple of miles each day, often buying groceries or visiting U-Village on foot. The area has a great kids' shoe store, she said, and a consignment shop with quilts, used baby clothes, and vintage rocket lunchboxes.
She and her husband wanted a neighborhood where they could walk and commute by bike, but didn't want to be downtown with a baby.
Walkability rankings to guide her search "would have been great," she said. "Especially with gas prices, it's important to us."
The lifestyle clearly isn't for everyone -- with better schools, mountain views or larger homes trumping convenient walking-destinations for some.
To the east, Laurelhurst is a residential neighborhood of immaculately landscaped homes and driveways big enough to play basketball in. It's possible to drive for four miles on tangled streets without seeing a single business.
The priciest areas of Laurelhurst, Windermere and View Ridge rank as almost entirely car dependent, a fact that wouldn't shock anyone who chose to buy there.
The original neighborhood
Pioneer Square, which has the city's highest Walk Score, has the bones for a great walkable neighborhood: two-lane streets, wide sidewalks, tree-lined medians and shops selling everything from high-end furniture to juggling supplies.
"It's the original Seattle neighborhood," said Ryan Romaneski, executive director of the Pioneer Square Community Association. "I think it helps make our case that this community can handle more density without having to rely on single-occupancy vehicles."
Ironically, what the city's most walkable neighborhood doesn't have is a lot of people living there. The city is considering a major rezone of south downtown to allow taller buildings and encourage much denser residential development.
Randy Koch, a storekeeper at Cuttysark Nautical Antiques, said while that could boost business, it could also drive up prices and erode the area's affordability. "Everything seems to be geared towards Microsofties these days -- they are the royalty of the region," he said.
But Williams-Derry argues that tools like Walk Score demonstrate how new urban developments can benefit neighborhoods -- if they incorporate services and businesses that people actually want.
"If you see this is actually going to drive up my Walk Score and make my life more convenient, some of that (opposition) is going to vanish," he said.
