Check your neighborhood's walkability score:
your neighborhood's walk score
It tells you the distance of stuff like grocery stores and hardware stores and coffee shops that are within a mile or so of your address. As far as I can tell it doesn't take into account things like paths and sidewalks and like whether it might be a hundred and eighteen degrees when you are trying to walk to the grocery store, but it is a fun tool and I think its creators have a really swell idea and could probably do way more with it in the future. (Oh wait, I'm looking a little closer at the site and they even say that they don't take stuff like temperature into account.....)
My neighborhood rates 35 out of a hundred, with 100 being the best. Lately though, by riding my bike and by walking home a few times from the bus, I have realized my walkshed* is way better than I would ever have previously realized. Someday before it gets to be a hundred and eighteen degrees** I want to walk to Mint Thai Cafe and walk back home. I'll get the thai ice tea and eat as much curry as I want and not really care cuz I'll be walking home.
* The places to which you can easily walk are your walkshed.
** I did this once last summer. Walked home when it was 118. And didn't have keys to get inside so i broke down part of the fence and thank goodness for the hose.
Mmmm...thai tea and curry...
Posted by: jamie | May 02, 2008 at 08:36 AM
My walk score is 45… I was rather upset with it. And I was surprised to know that there is another score called drive score to evaluate my house. I found the way to calculate it online at Fizber site (http://drivescore.fizber.com/ ). I’ve got much better results – 83.
Posted by: Warner | May 10, 2008 at 06:39 AM
We really should walk more. I wish it felt safer to get out there and walk, and you're right - pretty soon it will be too dangerously hot. At least we can ride our bikes!
Posted by: brenda | May 12, 2008 at 08:40 AM
that comment was from becky not brenda!
Posted by: becky | May 12, 2008 at 08:41 AM
This is awesome...we got a 78!! Woohoo, that is so cool. I was curious about our old house in Mesa and that one scored a 38...which surprisingly was higher than I thought it would be! Kelli :)
Posted by: Kelli | June 02, 2008 at 09:51 PM