Toronto ranked second most pedestrian-friendly city in Canada by WalkScore

[nfitz]

Queen St. East by the Beaches is a model walkable neighbourhood on the other hand: easy to cross the street anywhere, usually only a couple of live traffic lanes at any given point, frequent streetcar service with frequent stops, bicycle-friendly and with bike paths nearby, locals frequently walk to stores, etc.

Easy to cross the street anywhere? Frequent streetcar service? Your not down there very often are you.

 

[taal]

Toronto is full of "walkable" streets !

Queen E (the beeches, by far and large, yes streetcar service can be poor)
Queen W
Bloor ! So many stretches in this area (Kingsway to the west, and the east most part of the Danforth) ... with many such areas in-between.
King W / E
St. Clair
... way to many to name ...

Having said that, there aren't many walkable districts, if that makes any sense, Toronto has a very "main street" model, outside of the core (one street, with dense retail), but surrounded by residential / quiet streets, with very little of anything other then houses.

Now the core it self is different, where you'll find many more of these streets close together.

meh, maybe this is the model everywhere.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

W. K. Lis, as I understand (and I'm not presently well informed) many schools are forbidden from releasing children at the end of the day if they are not either picked up by the parent or leave on the bus. So it's not about lazy kids or even over-protective parents.

My kids walked home from school in Riverdale, as did all of their friends and the kids at the other schools in our district. No mention of parents needing to be there, ever.

Riverdale is extremely walkable. East York and Leaside less so, but much more than folks here who are dismissive of the walkability.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Montreal should be the #1 on this list. Because it's not, it's invalid.

Says someone who goes to Montreal as a tourist and doesn't live out in the East End or back of the mountain...

 

[balenciaga]

While these two are technically 'walkable', I find them both psychologically unpleasant and inconvenient for pedestrians. At times there are 5 live traffic lanes with cars and trucks moving at high speeds. I find them very noisy and it's near impossible to cross the street. How many pedestrian crossings do you see in your pictures? Can you jaywalk?

Also, these streets are very unfriendly for bicycles and there's no frequent transit other than the subway - which leaves you 2km apart! There's a reason why even people who live within walking distance of these stores frequently choose to drive to them.

Not to mention what he showed are simply the main commerical street.

Yes, Y/E is kind of walkable, as long as you live extremely close to Yonge street. , because there is nothing on streets other hand Yonge, which makes Y/E essentially not a neighbourhood, but just a skinny stretch wrapp around Yonge st.
What about Spadina/Eglinton, is it walkable? St Clair/Mt Pleasant?

OK, let me rephrase, north of Bloor, essentially there are very limited walkable area if you don't live within 10 minutes to Yonge St.

 

[nfitz]

What about Spadina/Eglinton, is it walkable? St Clair/Mt Pleasant?

Are we cherry picking? What about Bathurst/Eglinton or St. Clair/Dufferin. Much of St. Clair is walkable - and certainly on the up with all the recent improvements. And you pick the quiet piece at the eastern end?

OK, let me rephrase, north of Bloor, essentially there are very limited walkable area if you don't live within 10 minutes to Yonge St.

There may areas that are less walkable, but I think your stretching it.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Yes, Y/E is kind of walkable, as long as you live extremely close to Yonge street. , because there is nothing on streets other hand Yonge, which makes Y/E essentially not a neighbourhood, but just a skinny stretch wrapp around Yonge st.
What about sSpadina/Eglinton, is it walkable? St Clair/Mt Pleasant?

OK, let me rephrase, north of Bloor, essentially there are very limited walkable area if you don't live within 10 minutes to Yonge St.

Ad Hominen attack alert for Hawc: Bally, you're a pinhead.

Yonge/Eg has a big park, rec centre, arena, and resto/bar strip at Oriole, then another at Bathurst. In the other direction, there's Eg & Mt. Pleasant, with its stores and restos, movie theatres to the south. North, Mrs. RRR and I lived on Sheldrake w/o a car just fine for many years, w/o resorting to buying food at Sporting Life.

Spadina & Eg is the north end of the Spadina Rd FH village. St. Clair & Mt. Pleasant is a 10 minute walk to a Sobey's & 15 to Yonge & St. Clair. Davisville has commercial strips on both Yonge & Mt. Pleasant. In my beloved east end, Pape north, Kingston Road, Queen, Danforth, Gerrard Square, Little India, etc. provide walkability. I'm sure west enders can give a pretty good case for Queen, Dundas, College, Dupont, Davenport, St. Clair West, Eglinton, Lawrence west at Cedarvale.

Did I mention you're a pinhead?

 

[urbandreamer]

Says someone who goes to Montreal as a tourist and doesn't live out in the East End or back of the mountain...

Did I mention I used to live in Montreal and may one day move back? In most nabes in Mtl it is a short walk to get the basics--beer, groceries, baguettes, coffee, shopping.

 

[diminutive]

Having said that, there aren't many walkable districts, if that makes any sense, Toronto has a very "main street" model, outside of the core (one street, with dense retail), but surrounded by residential / quiet streets, with very little of anything other then houses..

Yea, I think this is a fair criticism. Compared to many cities Toronto does seem to have a very strict separation between commercial 'main streets' and residential 'side streets.' It's gotten to the point where I get excited even seeing a convenience store tucked away on a residential street. This seems to be a pretty consistent feature of Toronto urban planning, even pre-WW2.

On the whole we're still a pretty walkable city but I'm not sure it's the greatest model, this urban linearism. At least downtown the 'mainstreets' are relativel close together, so it's nbd to walk to from Dundas to College. As we try to replicate the mainstreet thing in the suburbs though these avenues are prohibitively far apart from each other, inhibiting any kind of sense of urban continuity. Even despite some substantial density many of these commercial areas feel strung out and stranded in a sea of nothingness. Tellingly, outside of downtown, we tend to describe areas by reference to nearest intersection (e.g. Bathurst/Steeles) rather some kind of functional 'neighbourhood,' I suspect largely due to the distance between these avenues.

There are exceptions to this though, like Kensington Market.

 

[nfitz]

Did I mention I used to live in Montreal and may one day move back? In most nabes in Mtl it is a short walk to get the basics--beer, groceries, baguettes, coffee, shopping.

I can see you haven't spent much time trying to do this in parts of Rivieres-des-Prairies or Pointe-aux-Trembles ... unless you do all your shopping at the depanneur attached to the gas station (which would let you get all those things ...).

 

[RC8]

Easy to cross the street anywhere? Frequent streetcar service? Your not down there very often are you.

Queen East has service at least every 15 minutes (more often during peak hours), while Yonge N of Eglinton has bus service every 30 minutes.

Queen East has pedestrian crossings every 200m, whereas there's about 400m in between Yonge and Eglinton and the nearest pedestrian crossing to the North.

If you choose to jaywalk, in Queen East you must do so across 2 live traffic lanes. In Yonge N of Eglinton you must do so across 4-5 live traffic lanes.

Obviously the beaches are still essentially a suburb, but for Toronto standards it's a very walkable place - while Yonge N of Eglinton is lacking even by local standards.

 

[Memph]

Some of the numbers seem weird. I would have expected Verdun or St. Michel-Villeray-Parc Extension to get higher scores.

Anyways, I added up all the scores of Old Toronto's neighbourhoods and weighted them by the population* of the neighbourhood and got a score of 88, higher than even NY and SF. Calgary would probably score in the low 70s to high 60s depending on how exactly you draw the boundaries, although like with many other cities, its downtown/core area ranks quite a bit higher still.

*Note that the neighbourhood populations seem to be overestimated.

 

[LNahid2000]

Queen East has service at least every 15 minutes (more often during peak hours), while Yonge N of Eglinton has bus service every 30 minutes.

Queen East has pedestrian crossings every 200m, whereas there's about 400m in between Yonge and Eglinton and the nearest pedestrian crossing to the North.

If you choose to jaywalk, in Queen East you must do so across 2 live traffic lanes. In Yonge N of Eglinton you must do so across 4-5 live traffic lanes.

Obviously the beaches are still essentially a suburb, but for Toronto standards it's a very walkable place - while Yonge N of Eglinton is lacking even by local standards.

I actually prefer walking on Yonge north of Eglinton to Yonge south of Bloor. The sidewalks are wider than downtown, and I like the type of stores they have up there. Bus service may be only every 30 minutes, but you can catch a bus north or south (whichever comes first) to get to the subway, but I usually just walk the 15 minutes. Also Yonge/Eglinton to Yonge/Broadway is only 300m.

 

[Dennis Ian]

Toronto is more pedestrian-friendly than anywhere except Vancouver" - it implies that Toronto is better than every single community assessed by WalkScore, apart from Vancouver, and that's not the case.

 

[nfitz]

Queen East has service at least every 15 minutes (more often during peak hours), while Yonge N of Eglinton has bus service every 30 minutes.

You appear to be mistaking the schedule for what actually happens. 30+ minute service gaps on Queen aren't unusual. Yonge north has a subway that runs every 6 minutes or better.

Obviously the beaches are still essentially a suburb, but for Toronto standards it's a very walkable place - while Yonge N of Eglinton is lacking even by local standards.

Both are very walkable.