Walkable Urbanism: The most walkable metros ranked (US)

[Steely Dan]

the notion that any american metro area of any significant size is walkable is beyond absurd in my opinion. all of our metro areas sprawl way beyond the limits of what is practically walkable for a given human being.

what i would find to be a profoundly more meaningful exercise would be to a find a way to quantify metro areas on the basis of which ones are the most alternate-transportation friendly (ie. walking, biking, transit, anything that's not a personal automobile). or put more simply, which metro areas are best for the car-free individual?

[novawolverine]

Originally Posted by memph

The WalkUPs for D.C.

Historic town centres of former small towns:
-Frederick
-Alexandria
-Fairfax

New town centres in the suburbs
-Reston (boundaries seem to be Dulles Toll Rd, Fairfax County Pkwy, New Dominion Pkwy and Hidden Creek Golf Club)
-Kentlands/Lakelands

Emerging and established TODs
-Rockville
-North Bethesda
-Wheaton
-Silver Spring
-Bethesda
-Friendship Village
-Rosslyn-Ballston corridor
-Crystal City
-Eisenhower Ave

The most of the core of D.C.
14th St corridor up to Spring Rd and much of L'Enfant's city

A couple more outlying parts of D.C.
-Tenleytown
-Woodley Park
-U of D.C. area

More dubious examples include less developed areas around metro station
-New Carrollton
-Prince Georges Plaza
-Pentagon City

As well as other less developed or under development areas
-National Harbour
-Baileys Crossroads
-Seven Corners
-Annandale

And of course Tysons Corners

I wouldn't call Pentagon City a dubious example, at least when compared to Prince George's Plaza. Wherever you put Eisenhower Ave, that's probably where Pentagon City would go. It's emerging and/or established.

And I'm not sure I'd lump in Kentland's and Bailey's Crossroads as places that shouldn't be included with DC. Bailey's Crossroads is on the border with Arlington, whereas Kentlands is 20+ miles away, more akin to Reston, which is how you broke them up here.

Bailey's Crossroads has heavily used Metrobus lines being the intersection of Columbia Pike and Route 7. While lacking a metrorail line, it's more like a PG Plaza or even New Carrolton in its development than National Harbor.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the notion that any american metro area of any significant size is walkable is beyond absurd in my opinion. all of our metro areas sprawl way beyond the limits of what is practically walkable for a given human being.

what i would find to be a profoundly more meaningful exercise would be to a find a way to quantify metro areas on the basis of which ones are the most alternate-transportation friendly (ie. walking, biking, transit, anything that's not a personal automobile). or put more simply, which metro areas are best for the car-free individual?

What metro areas are best for the car free individual over a series of income ranges?

Car free and a 30K income in the NYC boroughs might be pretty hardcore. Car free and making 150k makes Lower Manhattan affordable (350 to 400 sq/ft studio apartment).

Actually, the best cities for the lower income car free individual, IMO, would tend to be university towns- rental costs are relatively low and cultural amenities relatively good. At the high population end, Madison Wisconsin. At the small end, maybe Lawrence, KS (population ~50k).

I guess what one should do would be include those cities that are part of a metro-area, like Boulder, CO, or Davis, CA, both of which are bike friendly.

[Tuckerman]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

the notion that any american metro area of any significant size is walkable is beyond absurd in my opinion. all of our metro areas sprawl way beyond the limits of what is practically walkable for a given human being.

what i would find to be a profoundly more meaningful exercise would be to a find a way to quantify metro areas on the basis of which ones are the most alternate-transportation friendly (ie. walking, biking, transit, anything that's not a personal automobile). or put more simply, which metro areas are best for the car-free individual?

While I quite like the report on walkability, it is quite "American" in context. Walkability is defined more or less by where you can go in cities and walk; more or less walkable neighborhoods and development areas.

Almost every American city requires a car - if you are to fully utilize the whole city. To live without a car means that areas of interest in the burbs or distant parts of the sprawled metro area are not easily accessible. In some 5 decades of adult living, I have only lived in two cities where I felt full access to the whole metropolitan area without ever taking a car. Neither was in this country _ I have lived in Chicago, Boston and Baltimore and despite their fairly elaborate transit systems (particularly in Boston) - one could hardly easily move from one venue to another with convenience without a car. On the other hand 10 years living in Edinburgh without a car was very easy and more convenient without a car (that is an important point) and now frequent visits to Berlin (significant other's hometown) illustrate how even a very large city can be more convenient without a car. We simply do not want to invest in the infrastructure.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Tuckerman

To live without a car means that areas of interest in the burbs or distant parts of the sprawled metro area are not easily accessible.

you must be joking around. there is absolutely nothing of any interest in chicago's suburbs.

[Tuckerman]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

you must be joking around. there is absolutely nothing of any interest in chicago's suburbs.

Brookfield Zoo?

[Tuckerman]

And,not to mention - the Calumet Skyway Bridge - that's exciting !

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Tuckerman

Brookfield Zoo?

i wasn't being serious, but anyway, lincoln park zoo is free which automatically makes it better than brookfield zoo.

but if one is dead set on going to brookfield zoo, there is a metra stop literally right at the front entrance of the zoo.

[fflint]

I've been car-free for over a decade in San Francisco and it's a breeze. Getting around the city by foot, bike and transit is easier than driving and parking. And bringing my bicycle aboard the ferry boats and regional railroads (BART, Caltrain) has made it easy to get around the Bay Area as a whole. It was similar when I lived car-free in Boston for several years--I never had any problem getting wherever I wanted to go, including places like Provincetown. Alternatively, I lived car-free in Los Angeles very briefly in 2001, and that status absolutely dictated where and when I could travel.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by fflint

I've been car-free for over a decade in San Francisco and it's a breeze. Getting around the city by foot, bike and transit is easier than driving and parking. And bringing my bicycle aboard the ferry boats and regional railroads (BART, Caltrain) has made it easy to get around the Bay Area as a whole. It was similar when I lived car-free in Boston for several years--I never had any problem getting wherever I wanted to go, including places like Provincetown. Alternatively, I lived car-free in Los Angeles very briefly in 2001, and that status absolutely dictated where and when I could travel.

I lived car free and bike free in Boston (Back Bay/Brookline mostly) for 5 years and the only inconvenience was grocery shopping, and that was only because I was a student/professor's slave working minimum wage university jobs so I had to trek further for the big grocery stores that had cheaper prices than the local smaller markets. I used to walk about a mile to a star market passing smaller convenience store markets along the way and had to lug my groceries back by hand.

[Doc_Robert]

What is a "WalkUP"...?

[SE9]

Originally Posted by memph

So I was able to find the walkUPs for Atlanta.

They include

Part but not all of pre-WWII Atlanta (divided into several contiguous walkUPs) from Colonial Homes to Adair Park/West End to Poncey-Highland

Emerging TODs:
-Perimeter Centre (central portion only though, not the entire area)
-Buckhead (the area around the metro station+the adjacent node at Peachtree & Roswell Rd)
-Lindbergh Centre

Historic centres of former small towns:
-Roswell
-Marietta
-Decatur

University Campus:
-Emory University+CDC

More dubious areas:
-Roswell Drive area in Sandy Springs from Abernathy to The Perimeter
-Cumberland between Cumberland Drive and The Perimeter

The eastside of Atlanta is improving in this regard. I'd have expected the area around Edgewood, Kirkwood, Inman Park and the Old 4th Ward to feature.

[memph]

Originally Posted by SE9

The eastside of Atlanta is improving in this regard. I'd have expected the area around Edgewood, Kirkwood, Inman Park and the Old 4th Ward to feature.

They seem to have included the more mixed use areas of the Old 4th Ward and Inman Park though not the more SFH residential parts and not Kirkwood and Edgewood.

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

Miami's density does help to offer a workable template, but that template is highly suburban-styled... with many major N-S and E-W multi-lane, very long, straight, and wide, pancake-flat thoroughfares dominating the built environment immediately outside of the downtown core. That's not an easy template to work with since by design it encourages in a number of ways getting in a car to go anywhere outside of your immediate surroundings -- actually not only encouraging, but in many cases, forcing one to do so. It will not be easy... the lack of topographic changes really made it so easy to simply lay out long, wide streets across the landscape... resulting in what amounts to a "street scene" dominated by ground-level highways passing through the greater city.

I guess, but since Miami largely has a grid the main problem at hand is to create density from the city from the downtown core out. This is what most Sunbelt cities may have to do to, although at a faster rate than the older cities in the Northeast and Rustbelt. If the downtown is relatively walkable already (ex. Brickell, Downtown), the best way to increase density is to build up the area around it. North of Downtown Miami dramatically decreases in built form. Hopefully the new developments there will increase the core walkability of the area.

[Vatnos]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Smell test fail:




How the fuck do the old-bones cities fall behind the likes of Phoenix?

I'm more puzzled by the lack of Charlotte on the list. Not that I would expect it to do remotely well on such a list, but that if they're looking at the 30-something largest metro areas it is bizarre to leave just that one off.