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What's your Walk Score?

My house (Vaughan and Oakwood Area) - 80 (Walkability), 88 (Transit), 70 (Biking)

My job (King/Jarvis) - 100 (Walkability), 100 (Transit), 77 (Biking)
 
Scarborough Bluffs, located in what some of you guys call the "inner 'burbs".

70 walking - Very Walkable - Most errands can be accomplished on foot.
41 transit - Some Transit - Nearby: 2 bus, 0 rail, 0 other
15 bike - Somewhat Bikeable - Very steep hills, minimal lanes

Ironically, the road bikers love it here, for exercise. We see the spandex-clad biking groups all the time. Little traffic, quiet streets with nice views, and yes, steep hills. Which reminds me... I need to get out on my bike here again, along the Waterfront Trail, and then down Brimley to the marina, and then back up the hill, close to 1 km up the hill. The streets are great for road biking, and there is some mountain biking too.
 
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From DC.Streets.Blog, at this link:

The Suburb Where Everybody Can Walk to School


Lakewood, Ohio, population 51,000, doesn’t have any school buses. It never has.

Because of the way its schools were designed and sited, this inner-ring Cleveland suburb doesn’t need buses — every child in the district lives less than two miles from their classroom, and most are within one mile.

Lakewood calls itself a “walking school district.†It’s one of just a small handful in the state of Ohio. â€Our community likes the walking,†said Lakewood City School District spokesperson Christine Gordillo. “That’s kind of one of our brands.â€

The school system runs a small transportation program for students with special needs — about 100 students use it, out of 5,800. The rest of the students are on their own, whether they walk, bike, or get a ride (Lakewood doesn’t track how students travel). To transport students to sporting events, the district contracts with another school system.

Gordilla estimates the policy saves the district about $1 million a year, and that allows it to devote more resources to the classroom.

“Parents are really appreciative that we do not constantly have to worry about big budgets for school buses,†says Kristine Pagsuyoin, mother of a sixth and eighth grader in the district.

The city’s history has set the stage for the walkability of its schools. An old streetcar suburb, Lakewood was incorporated in 1911, before cars were in wide use. So the city has always been walkable and compact, and schools were no exception. All of the district’s school buildings are multi-story — which makes them more compact and walkable — and they’re all sited on smaller lots, in the middle of residential neighborhoods.

Over the years, as the school district has modernized and reduced the number of schools, Lakewood has consciously continued to make walking to school a high priority. In the early 2000s, the city underwent a facilities masterplanning process as it began updating and consolidating many of its school buildings. Gordillo said parents made it clear during that process that they value the walkability of the school district and wanted things to remain as they were.

So the district made its school-bus free transportation policy a continuing priority. When Lakewood reduced the number of schools, it made sure they — especially the elementary schools — were spaced out to be close to as many students as possible. Rather than trading the older, walkable buildings for a more sprawling style, many of the historic school buildings underwent historic preservation treatments. That means no giant parking lots either. Some parents or visitors might have to park on a nearby street.

Part of the walkable design was by necessity. Lakewood is a “built-out†community, meaning all of its developable land is already occupied. Building a sprawling car-centric campus far away from where families live wasn’t an option, the way it is for a lot of suburban districts.

“We only had the sites to work with,†Gordillo said. “We didn’t have a big chunk of land where we could build a new school with more parking.â€

Pagsuyoin says both of her children walk on their own about a mile, except when it’s very cold or her daughter needs to transport her cello. The exercise makes her feel more confident her children are getting enough physical activity, especially her son, who loves computer games.

“There’s sort of this spirit in Lakewood, get your kids walking,†she says. “Kids will say, ‘I don’t feel like walking today.’ I know my response and many parents is, ‘Just start walking.’â€

Both she and Gordillo says there’s something intangible gained as ell.

“It does create community that is hard to accomplish in districts where people are more spread out,†said Pagsuyoin.
Click to expand...
 
North York centre area:

Walk: 100
Transit: 93
Bike: 51

That being said, you still have to keep your wits when strolling (especially across Yonge and Sheppard intersection) as the drivers are either incompetent or just don't give a crap.

PS: Checked the score for my previous residence in Halifax. Totally car-dependent with a walkscore of 20. Yikes.
 
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W. K. Lis said:
From DC.Streets.Blog, at this link:

The Suburb Where Everybody Can Walk to School
Click to expand...

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NorthYorkEd said:
North York centre area:

Walk: 100
Transit: 93
Bike: 51

That being said, you still have to keep your wits when strolling (especially across Yonge and Sheppard intersection) as the drivers are either incompetent or just don't give a crap.

PS: Checked the score for my previous residence in Halifax. Totally car-dependent with a walkscore of 20. Yikes.
Click to expand...

Going south from North York Centre by bike or on foot is not very pleasant from Sheppard to Yonge Blvd where the Old Toronto boundary was.
 
My walkscore is very high so is for everyone who lives in downtown.
wyliepoon said:
Go to http://walkscore.com/ and enter your address in the field at the top of the page, and the website will calculate the walkability (a score out of 100) of your neighbourhood based on the distance to various neighbourhood amenities. Looks like a lot of fun.

My North Scarborough neighbourhood was rated 40/100 - a "car-dependent neighbourhood", but some of the calculations are wrong (for example, the closest library to my house is Goldhawk, not Wooside Square, and T&T at Middlefield and Steeles is not the closest supermarket to my house).

Here's a screenshot of the Walk Score of my workplace... (some inaccuracies here too... Cafe Moda and New Man are both in my building)

untitled.jpg


Walk Score compiled a list of America's most walkable neighbourhood and cities. Perhaps we can start a list of Toronto's most walkable neighbourhoods based on the Walk Score.
Click to expand...
 
Archieindowntown said:
My walkscore is very high so is for everyone who lives in downtown.
Click to expand...

The Walk Score algorithm is based on Google Maps, snapshotted every 6 months, as I understand it. If it's not on Google Maps, it doesn't figure into your walk score. My Walk Score shows restaurants that shut down months ago. It calls a convenience store "groceries" when I have a huge supermarket just steps beyond in the other direction.
 
I don't know if anybody has posted this, but there's actually a map of walk-score in Toronto here:
http://www.walkscore.com/CA-ON/Toronto

This matches with other maps like this:
http://spacing.ca/toronto/2011/06/0...oronto-with-the-top-25-walking-intersections/

It also matches pretty well with what areas were developed before the 1950's:
http://peoplemaps.esri.com/toronto/
(change to the 1947 map and zoom out)

And finally.. it matches pretty well with Old Toronto, the old city of Toronto, which isn't just downtown, it includes midtown and areas east & west of downtown.

My neighbourhood of Yonge & Eg scores pretty high on walkability & pedestrian traffic.
 
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