I Might Have Ended Up in a Car Dependent Situation
When I was in the hospital following my stroke the level that I would recover early on was not known. While I was sedated family and friends discussed where I might end up. A nursing home was an option. One of my brothers though I should go live with him back in my birth town of Oklahoma City so he could attend to my needs. Thankfully my recovery progressed very well and was able to return to my own place in downtown St Louis.
But what about my brother’s place? It features many bedrooms & bathrooms and a predominate 3-car garage. Both of the subdivision’s entrances are gated. It is the complete opposite of my downtown lifestyle.
Using walkscore.com I confirmed what I already knew about his place — it is car dependent. The Walk Score was a low 38 out of 100. Helping it get that high of a score is a grocery store & pharmacy just 0.22 miles as the crow flies. Walking out his front door and looking left you can spot the parking lot lights for the store. Getting there, however, is another thing completely.
A couple of years ago while visiting I walked over there for something. This required a walk through the curving streets of his subdivision and passing all the 3-car garages. The internal sidewalks end at the gate. To leave on foot you must walk through the gate used by motorists. Now out at a busy arterial that has yet to be widened to four lanes you basically end up walking in the drainage ditch as no sidewalks are provided. This route about doubles the distance to the store.
The home where we grew up is not much better getting 45 out of 100. Again zero sidewalks which is not something factored into the scoring. The drive-in theater listed at .99 miles away has been closed for 30+ years. The restaurant about the same distance away is a drive-in! Returning to Oklahoma would not have been an option for me.
My other brother’s place in the Bay Area gets a “somewhat walkable” score of 68 out of 100. I’ve walked with him and his wife while visiting and though it is not the same as being in San Francisco it is pretty decent. They’ve got a nice market reachable by sidewalks and a cute old downtown nearby.
But none of those are home for me. My loft between 16th & 17th gets a “very walkable” 83 out of 100. Put in the address for say the Paul Brown rental lofts at 816 Olive and it gets a rating of “walker’s paradise”, a 100 out of 100! Lumiere Place in Laclede’s Landing gets a 78 out of 100 — still “very walkable” in their rating system. All are downtown but each has a different score.
Walk Score acknowledges their system is not perfect:
We’ll be the first to admit that Walk Score is just an approximation of walkability. There are a number of factors that contribute to walkability that are not part of our algorithm:
Public transit: Good public transit is important for walkable neighborhoods.
Street width and block length: Narrow streets slow down traffic. Short blocks provide more routes to the same destination and make it easier to take a direct route.
Street design: Sidewalks and safe crossings are essential to walkability. Appropriate automobile speeds, trees, and other features also help.
Safety from crime and crashes: How much crime is in the neighborhood? How many traffic accidents are there? Are streets well-lit?
Pedestrian-friendly community design: Are buildings close to the sidewalk with parking in back? Are destinations clustered together?
Topography: Hills can make walking difficult, especially if you’re carrying groceries.
Freeways and bodies of water: Freeways can divide neighborhoods. Swimming is harder than walking.
Weather: In some places it’s just too hot or cold to walk regularly.
Kirkwood’s city hall also gets a “walker’s paradise” score of 100 out of 100 while Manchester’s gets a “somewhat walkable” at 65. Sorry but Manchester Rd at 141 isn’t even remotely walkable. Downtown Kirkwood is a much different feel than 8th & Olive yet they get the same score. Take it all with a grain of salt. It does give you a good glimpse into an area and shows you what is nearby. Density is a good thing — the more goods and services nearby the better. I guess I should develop an urban score rating system?
As the technology advances and they can begin to show a walking distance then places like my brother’s house that is within visual sight of a grocery store but a long walk will see their scores drop in relation to other places that have a good street grid to get you there directly.
I’m just so thankful that I’m home in my very walkable neighborhood and not in my brother’s nice but car dependent home.
The walk-ability of St. Louis is one of its greatest assets. Not only are there places nearby to walk to, but the architecture and design of much of the city makes for a pleasant walking experience. Yes, there is the occasional strip mall parking lot to contend with, but at least this isn’t what we see everywhere in the city.
BTW, Google maps just added a new feature that calculates distance by walking (ignoring one-way streets).
My current house in the burbs beats my old house in North Hampton, 63-54. It’s nowhere near as walkable as the old place though. This site has some bugs, but that’s to be expected, I guess.
My current location gets points for being right next to a school, but the Walk Score doesn’t take into consideration that its tuition is $15k a year and that I’ll (likely) never be able to afford to send my children there.
At the same time, it doesn’t list a park that is only a few blocks from my house, so my score should actually be a little higher.
You can also use the system by entering zip codes or whole town names.
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The system centers itself in the zip code area and gives ratings as follows:
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63116 – Bevo – 58
63111 – Carondelet – 55
63107 – Hyde Park – 54
63104 – Near 44/55 merge – 66
63101 – Downtown – 97
63120 – Wells Goodfellow – 25
63109 – SW City – 74
63147 – Baden – 14 (spot near truck yards – Bevo nabe would fare better)
63115 – Mark Twain – 31
63139 – Clifton Heights – 57
63110 – Midtown/FPSE – 71
63102 – Downtown North – 80
63106 – JVL – 35
63113 – Center North City – 52
63112 – West End (Not CWE) – 54
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On average, 55.
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Everything over 50 is trending to the good.
Definitely not perfect and not even close to accurate in many cases. As explained before, Walk Score is greatly misleading as it fails to include barriers to pedestrian paths. For instance, my neighborhood has a Walk Score of 74 and lists over 30 stores, restaurants, etc. within 0.5 miles. However most everyone of theses destinations requires walking more than twice that distance. In the case of 10 destinations supposedly within 0.25 miles, the actual distance to travel is 3.8 miles round trip. A highway is between my home and these destinations. The New 64 also eliminated a pedestrian bridge that more than doubles the distance of other places that are supposedly easy to walk to and from.
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Walkability is an important asset but local leadership, especially MOdot fails to address this issue in contradiction to their stated objectives at their website: http://epg.modot.org/index.php?title=Category:642_Pedestrian_Facilities
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In the end, MOdot leaves these decisions to the district engineer and Rahn has fought the concept of Complete Streets.
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Unfortunately Google maps also has the same misleading data if examined properly. One store is listed as just 0.2 miles away. In truth, it is 1.8 miles one way on foot.
My old apartment in Tower Grove South scored a 78; my new house in Holly Hills, 52. Sounds about right to me.
Interesting story, Steve. The ability to walk places seems rather vital. We enjoy being able to walk to most places, as you noted. And while we are not in a community that is as walkable as others, it is quite handy in most cases. I expect that if the movie theatre that we virtually never visit, which is 2 miles away, were out of the equation our score of 68 would likely be much higher. Again, great story and thanks for mentioning us here in the far away land of Northern California. BTW, Irwin really seems to like it here. R & R
Not a perfect tool, but it at least gets people thinking. And in my ‘hood, it completely ignores the Metrolink station!
I think it tends to be more accurate the further out into the suburbs you go; for instance, where I grew up west of Des Peres got a score of 14–very accurate. However, I tried an address near South Grand; it didn’t show hardly any of the restaurants we all know are there on the map. Also, they count 7-11 as a grocery store???
Or you just get a cheaper, more fuel-efficient car: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080727/COLUMNISTS04/807270447/1008/NEWS01