How walkable is your neighbourhood?

[Prince George]

Now remember, people, WalkScore is relying on Google for the locations of everything they are searching for. Mind you, it does seem that they might need to filter their "bookstores" results a little better.

[Wayno]

i updated the google maps cinema and chemist location details for my neighbourhood - score improved from 60 to 75! i wonder if this increased the value of my home?

[Shuz]

Bahahaha. It's shit. It gave my area a 28/100. Where I live now is the most walkable area I've ever lived in. Theres parks, shops, public transport, etc. all no more than at least 7 minutes away. What the hell does it base its score on?

[PhilH]

My place at Valley View initially rated 32 out of 100, I've managed to increase it to 38 by adding in the nearby Holden Hill shops with its IGA Supermarket, chemist/post office, and Barnacle Bill's eatery (I haven't deleted the recently-closed Golden Harvest Chinese restaurant, because a new restaurant will be opening on the same site soon).

Shuz - you might wish to sign up with Google maps, as I just did, and then you can add in any nearby shops, etc that are missing.

[katzchenfisch]

I live near the Belair National Park too (well, ish) and 29. Not at all surprising, and if they put in the topographical details it'd rank even lower. There is a reason most kids up here that have bikes have mountain bikes...and there are a few hills that are well known as suicide to go down on anything with wheels that isn't a car.

It's walkable to the Blackwood shops and I'm sure the walk is good for you, but practical for everyday stuff? Nope.

[Will409]

The less said about my area, the better!

I knew you'd say that. But at least you have those 3 schools and the brothel all in the one place.

Not quite a brothel although not far off. I do have a strip club next door to my TAFE though. I havn't tried yet but I do wonder how the centre of Salisbury will rate since there is a drive through bottle shop right next to a Centrelink office!

[Prince George]

Bahahaha. It's shit. It gave my area a 28/100. Where I live now is the most walkable area I've ever lived in. Theres parks, shops, public transport, etc. all no more than at least 7 minutes away. What the hell does it base its score on?

Erm, the internet's biggest and most powerfull search engine. If Google doesn't know where the shops are, then WalkScore doesn't either.

I'm intrigued that people are having to tell Google where things are - I had thought that Google/Live/Yahoo local search was made by identifying addresses while they are crawling the 'net. For instance, all the information they need would be in the Yellow Pages, perhaps they are prevented from indexing them somehow?

If you want more detail on how they produce the score, take a look at http://www.walkscore.com/how-it-works.shtml They give a location points based on how close the nearest amenity is in each of the categories they are looking for; the number of options is not a factor, just the distance to the nearest one. Likewise, I don't think that the "clustering" of shops etc is considered, so if they are all close to your address but spread out from each other, that gets the same score as having them in one place.

They don't consider topography, street design, or public transport, and they "currently support addresses in the United States, Canada, and the U.K." I've sent them mail asking if they can add Australia to that list.

The purpose of the site is to help people think about what makes neighbourhoods walkable or not. The maps and scores rank one of the critical factors: proximity to services. Another interesting factor is the street layout -- take a look at the two maps at the bottom of http://www.walkscore.com/walkable-neighborhoods.shtml. Each shows the area that can be reached by walking for 1 mile from two different starting points. The simple grid pattern lets a walker cover a much greater area than those convoluted layouts of many recent sub-divisions. My takeaway - fractals make good screensavers, less useful as town plans.