How Walkable Is Your Neighborhood?

Umm, I got a 40/100. And my neighborhood is very walkable. Maybe it's because they somehow got a dentist office listed as a bar?
 
Boston.com - September 22, 2010
Allston Brighton,Back Bay,Dorchester,Jamaica Plain,South Boston,South End
Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South End rank as most-walkable neighborhoods

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

Boston has always been known as one of the most convenient cities for navigating on foot, but which are the Hub's best neighborhoods to walk around?

Some number-crunchers actually made a science of ?walkability? several years ago, ranked the most walkable cities in the country. In the process, they crushed the belief held by many local residents, businesses, and city officials that there was no better city than Boston to hoof it.

Now, those same statisticians are providing an even closer look at precisely which areas within various U.S. cities, including Boston, are most and least pedestrian-friendly.

According to WalkScore.com, Boston's most walkable neighborhoods are the the Back Bay, Beacon Hill and the South End with walk scores of 97, while Fenway-Kenmore, the downtown area, and Allston-Brighton round out the top five.

"Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle ? not how pretty the area is for walking," the site explains. Its "algorithm awards points based on the distance to amenities in each category. ... The number of nearby amenities is the leading predictor of whether people walk."

With a score of 60, the site says West Roxbury is the least walkable neighborhood, and is topped by Mattapan, East Boston, Hyde Park, and Roslindale.

Overall, Boston scores a 79, good for third-best in the country behind first-place San Francisco and second-place New York City, according to the site which launched in 2007 and has an advisory board comprised of urban planning, environmental and technical experts from institutions such as The Sightline Institute and The Brookings Institution.

Brookings conducted its own study the same year WalkScore.com launched and ranked Boston second behind the nation?s capital, which WalkScore ranks seventh.

Walkability has become a buzzword in real estate, and some realtors told the Globe in 2009 that houses with high walkability scores can be easier to sell.

Below is the complete list of neighborhoods and walk scores as determined by WalkScore.com. You can also check out a heat map that shows the best and worst spots of Boston to stroll around by clicking here:

1. Back Bay-Beacon Hill - 97
2. South End - 97
3. Fenway-Kenmore - 96
4. Central (Downtown, West End, North End, Financial District, Chinatown, Theater District) - 95
5. Allston-Brighton - 86
6. Jamaica Plain - 84
7. Charlestown - 81
8. North Dorchester - 80
9. South Boston - 80
10. Roxbury - 78
11. South Dorchester - 77
12. Roslindale - 73
13. Hyde Park - 67
14. East Boston - 66
15. Mattapan - 61
16. West Roxbury - 60

What the scores mean, according to WalkScore:

* 90?100 Walker's Paradise ? Daily errands do not require a car.
* 70?89 Very Walkable ? Most errands can be accomplished on foot.
* 50?69 Somewhat Walkable ? Some amenities within walking distance.
* 25?49 Car-Dependent ? A few amenities within walking distance.
* 0?24 Car-Dependent ? Almost all errands require a car.

To learn more about scores and rankings are determined, click here.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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I'm shocked, shocked to discover that West Roxbury is the least walkable neighborhood in Boston.
 
The map was pretty cool.

http://www.walkscore.com/MA/Boston/

But I feel like unpopulated areas of some neighborhoods are sinking their walkability factors. ie: Stony Brook Reservation in West Roxbury/Hyde Park is red, but no one lives there...
 
Similarly, I wonder if Logan Airport got averaged into East Boston (which has a surprisingly low walking score), or Franklin Park and Forest Hills Cemetery into their surrounding neighborhoods.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
But I feel like unpopulated areas of some neighborhoods are sinking their walkability factors. ie: Stony Brook Reservation in West Roxbury/Hyde Park is red, but no one lives there...
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This is very true. I live in Roslindale, and if I put my address in, I get a 91. But Roslindale as a whole also has Mount Hope Cemetery, half of the Arboretum, half of Stony Brook reservation, etc. Similarly, parts of West Roxbury along Centre Street are very walkable, even though the aggregate score is low.

I also note from walk scores map that they consider Forest Hills to be in Roslindale. What would it do to the scores for JP and Rozzy if they considered it to be in JP?
 
The algorithm is obviously flawed. Beyond the first 4, the list becomes very dubious. East Boston, South Boston and Charlestown, for instance, should be listed much higher. Also, why does Franklin Park, the Arboretum, Castle Island/Carson Beach appear red while the Common/Public Garden, Esplanade, Fens and, ahem, Greenway appear green? Seems like they're saying some parks add to walkability, others detract from it. Strange.
 
My complaint is with how they describe the different groups or rankings on a continuum from walking to car-dependent. As an Eastie resident, I can accept that the neighborhood might lack some of the business types used to calculate the walk score (my house gets a 68), but since I'm a 3 minute subway ride to Central Boston (which rates a 95) I'm guessing the walk score views both transit and auto trips as being at the opposite end of the spectrum from walking.
 
Wow, that article was really published just a few days ago? Walk Score's neighborhood rankings and maps have been available for a couple of years now.

briv said:
Also, why does Franklin Park, the Arboretum, Castle Island/Carson Beach appear red while the Common/Public Garden, Esplanade, Fens and, ahem, Greenway appear green? Seems like they're saying some parks add to walkability, others detract from it. Strange.
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The only thing that counts in their calculation is the density of certain amenities, parks being just one item on the list. The Common, etc. are green because they're near more stuff. "Walkability" on this site really only means "distance to things."
 
But the question I have is whether they averaged the walk score of the entire neighborhood, including the areas that are red because they are Logan Airport or a huge park or cemetery or industrial zone.
 
I understand why lumping Allston and Brighton together makes sense for government purposes, but not here. Brighton is much less pedestrian-friendly than Allston, and I think if they were seperated we'd see Allston's score go up to somewhere around 90.
 
If Fenway wasn't lumped in with Kenmore, it would have had the highest neighborhood rate for Boston at 98 (Kenmore alone is 93).
 
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