http://moneyfeatures.blogs.money.cnn.com/2009/08/22/putting-a-price-on-walkability/

 

Putting a price on walkability

Posted by David Futrelle

August 22, 2009 11:13 pm

 

How much is walkability worth? An intriguing new study suggests that people are willing to pay considerable premiums for houses in neighborhoods that are highly walkable — that is, where you can actually get to nearby stores, schools, and parks without having to hop in the car.

 

The study, conducted by a group called CEOs for Cities, looked at 90,000 homes in 15 different markets in the US, mashing up home sales data with “walkability” scores from WalkScore.com. (See the press release describing the study here, or download the study itself, in pdf form, here.) In 13 of the 15 areas studied, homes in highly walkable neighborhoods sold on average for $4000 to $34,000 more than homes in neighborhoods of average walkability. The pattern held in locations as diverse as Chicago, Tucson, and Jacksonville, Florida; only in Las Vegas were more-walkable neighborhoods less desirable than less-walkable ones. To the author of the study, Joseph Cortright, this suggests that neighborhood walkability is “more than just a pleasant amenity,” and deserves far more attention from politicians and other urban leaders.

 

........

 

For more discussion of the report, see here (http://www.grist.org/article/2009-08-18-pay-more-walkability/) and here (http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2009/08/18/walkable-neighborhoods-are-worth-more).

 

So how walkable is your neighborhood? How much is walkability worth to you?

Check your neighborhood at: http://www.walkscore.com/

 

My Lakewood Gold Coast condo got only a 68, for "somewhat walkable." I figured it was because I was three blocks from the commercial district at Clifton and West 117th. But when I typed in an address less than a block from West 117th, my score fell to 60!

^ My NYC apartment got a 97, but I think that goes without saying!

 

My Cincinnati apartment got a 77, it's in area around the UC campus, which helps quite a bit.

98 for East Fourth St., though I am apparently supposed to shop for hardware at Sherwin-Williams corporate headquarters and other such things.

This thing is weird.

 

[*]I put in my address - Score 94

[*]I put in my cousins address, he lives next door - Score 88

[*]I put in my Ex's address, directly across the street in Shaker Courts - Score 84

 

:wtf:

Nice to see the results of this analysis, and I love CEOs for Cities, but their sample set of cities seems a bit objectionable. There is only one city in the Midwest (Chicago), none in the Northeast, 3 in the Southeast/Mid-Atlantic and 10 (!) on the West Coast / Southwest. It seems to me that skewing so much to the West (with 5 of the 15 cities inexplicably in California) would impact the results quite a bit.

 

As for walkscore, 77 for Asiatown, 89 for the Quadrangle, 82 for Gordon Square and 69 for Cedar Fairmount. The White House scores a 97, the Crawford Ranch a 0 :)

Click through for a photo of a before and after!

 

In the Future, the City’s Streets Are to Behave

By DAVID W. CHEN, New York Times, May 19, 2009

 

Imagine narrow European-style roadways shared by pedestrians, cyclists and cars, all traveling at low speeds. Sidewalks made of recycled rubber in different colors under sleek energy-efficient lamps. Mini-islands jutting into the street, topped by trees and landscaping, designed to further slow traffic and add a dash of green.

 

I was over in this area a couple of weeks ago and trust me they should have shown the adjacent streets.

 

They only did this to keep people from slanted parking in the middle of the street.

 

I dont think many people are going to use the bike line thru this area. 

Check your neighborhood at: http://www.walkscore.com/

 

My Lakewood Gold Coast condo got only a 68, for "somewhat walkable." I figured it was because I was three blocks from the commercial district at Clifton and West 117th. But when I typed in an address less than a block from West 117th, my score fell to 60!

 

Hah.  My Akron address got a 92.  I wonder.  Downtown still does feel empty a lot, especially at night.

How Walkability Raises Home Values in U.S. Cities

 

http://blog.walkscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/WalkingTheWalk_CEOsforCities.pdf

 

EFFECTS OF WALKABILITY ON PROPERTY VALUES AND INVESTMENT RETURNS

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~gpivo/Walkability%20Paper%208_4%20draft.pdf

Forwarded to me by BuckeyB:

 

ABC News Video of car-free german city.  I think it's the same city that articles have been posted about in various places in the UO forums:

 

http://gmy.news.yahoo.com/vid/15288400

 

 

 

^ Yeah, that is the same German "town" that has been discussed before. It's a nice news piece, but unfortunately the whole thing is a bit of a lie.

 

- It's not a town, it's a medium sized apartment development on the edge of an existing town (Freiberg)

- It's not a good example of urban form at all. The layout is essentially a "commie block" style.

- It's not car free. It's actually a "car lite" development. They have two roads running through the development, instead of maybe four roads plus cross-streets that would have been in a normal development.

It's still light years ahead of us, tho... :-D

To the extent that they have apartments within walking and biking distance of a light-rail line - yes, absolutely. :)

Meh.  Not really.

 

There's a real difference between faking it well and experiencing the real thing. :-P  :angel:  :evil:

Honk, Honk, Aaah

 

Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s Transportation commissioner, manages to be equal parts Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses. As she prepares to close swaths of Broadway to cars next week, she is igniting a peculiar new culture war—over the role of the automobile in New York.

By Michael Crowley Published May 17, 2009

New York Magazine

 

Sometime early Sunday morning this Memorial Day weekend, a work crew from the New York City Department of Transportation will arrive in Times Square. Waiting for a pause in traffic, the team will close off Broadway at 47th Street, directing southbound cars east to Seventh Avenue. In the weeks to come, construction workers will refashion the next five blocks of the boulevard, turning one of the world’s most congested stretches of asphalt into a 58,000-foot pedestrian plaza.

 

The same will happen a few blocks south, where another stretch of Broadway—from 33rd Street to 35th Street, at Herald Square—will be closed to cars and, by fall, dotted with café tables free for public use.

 

 

http://nymag.com/news/features/56794/

I think New Yorkers will discover what's been discovered elsewhere when you reduce highway capacity: the same traffic doesn't overwhelm other routes. Instead, traffic decreases.

 

What a concept.

I grew up outside of NYC and never understood why anyone would want to drive in the heart of Manhattan.  With as sophisticated system of commuter rail and the NYC subway system, there's no need.  And, having walked parks of it myself... it is a very walkable city.... (just keep an eye out for cabs when crossing the street!) 

I grew up outside of NYC and never understood why anyone would want to drive in the heart of Manhattan.  With as sophisticated system of commuter rail and the NYC subway system, there's no need.  And, having walked parks of it myself... it is a very walkable city.... (just keep an eye out for cabs when crossing the street!) 

 

Add:

• Downtown Brooklyn up Eastern Parkway or on ANY portion of Flatbush Avenue!
  
• Queens Blvd.
  

Living in NYC the past two years, there are plenty of times I've needed to drive through Manhattan (okay, well more like a dozen or so times), and because I live just off of Queens Blvd I drive it every couple of days and don't mind it at all.  It gets worse once it gets farther out into Queens and towards the suburbs, though. 

Living in NYC the past two years, there are plenty of times I've needed to drive through Manhattan (okay, well more like a dozen or so times), and because I live just off of Queens Blvd I drive it every couple of days and don't mind it at all.  It gets worse once it gets farther out into Queens and towards the suburbs, though. 

 

Sometimes when I'm in the car, I think.  I could have taken the subway and arrived at my destination quicker.

 

I equate driving in Manhattan, in the day, specifically the area bordered by, central park south/59 Street & 30 Street and Third Ave to Ninth Ave. to what it would be like to drive on a street in one of hells inner rings.

I think New Yorkers will discover what's been discovered elsewhere when you reduce highway capacity: the same traffic doesn't overwhelm other routes. Instead, traffic decreases.

 

What a concept.

 

Do you have a source for this?

It's about time we had a more "pedestrian" thread in the transportation category, so here's a start...

 

Sprucing up main sidewalks seems to pay off for cities

Tuesday,  October 27, 2009 3:07 AM

By Elizabeth Gibson

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

The Hot Issue: Should health-care reform include a government-run health insurance plan (the "public option") to compete with private insurers?

Not all sidewalks are equal.

 

Cities spend millions of dollars dressing them up with brick crosswalks, color-coordinated benches, decorative lampposts and flower baskets.

 

Some taxpayers wonder whether it's worth the money, but municipal leaders say it impresses both business people and visitors.

 

"The quality of the sidewalk is a reflection of community values," agreed Kyle Ezell, a visiting professor of city planning at Ohio State University. "I know that sounds kind of out there, but the most economically viable neighborhoods all have great sidewalks."

 

Full story at:

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/10/27/copy/streetscape.ART_ART_10-27-09_A1_8UFG5I8.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

Could Dublin use a touch of German Village?

City neighborhood a good walkability model, expert says

Tuesday,  October 27, 2009 2:56 AM

By Holly Zachariah

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

As Dublin considers how to position itself for the future, an expert in land use and development says city officials need look only as far as one Columbus neighborhood for guidance.

 

German Village stands as the best example in Ohio of how to build a community in which people can live, work and play and never have to drive to do any of it, said Christopher Leinberger, a University of Michigan professor and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, an independent policy-research group in Washington, D.C.

 

Full story at:

 

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/10/27/copy/BRIDGEGUY_-_refer.ART_ART_10-27-09_A4_8UFG612.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

Nooz, we have this thread on walkable communities which, unfortunately, was placed in City Discussion after it was cleaned. I've moved it back here it belongs and merged it with your two posts.

Ooh, Columbus has "the best example in Ohio". I bet it was hard for a Michigan native to utter that phrase.  ;)

 

German Village is distinct from other neighborhoods by having a smattering of occupied commercial structures all over the neighborhood housing a variety of businesses. Franklinton, for example, could be extremely walkable. It has three east west commercial streets (the southern two are more residential with mainly commercial intersections). The problem is, dodgy-looking bars, dumpy carryouts, and empty buildings don't give you much to walk to. I also have to question how much more walkable GV is vs. Old North Columbus which has a traditional linear commercial street lined with a good variety of businesses both utilitarian (groceries, laundromat, hardware store) and for going out (restaurants, bars, hookah lounges). Not to mention pockets of business districts off of High St.

 

Also, walkable communities are even easier to get around by bike or scooter.

Thanks for the merge KJP.

Safety an issue as schools tout walking

Wednesday,  October 28, 2009 3:26 AM

By Elizabeth Gibson

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

Yesterday's kickoff to Reynoldsburg schools' Walk to School Day campaign was intended to promote fitness and environmentally friendly practices, but its noble goals didn't meet everyone's approval.

 

Some residents say students shouldn't be asked to walk to school until major safety improvements have been made.

 

"There are several schools where there are absolutely no sidewalks, no crosswalks, and it's 45 mph," resident Anna Iulianelli said. "That's not acceptable."

 

More at:

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/10/28/walk.ART_ART_10-28-09_B1_CQFGF75.html?sid=101

^ I like how the kids are standing up against unwalkable environments! And in Reynoldsburg of all places.

I walked in the street for half of my journey to school. 

 

I turned out just fine! 

 

Safety my culo!

ABOUT FRIGGIN' TIME!!

 

Walk Score adds public transit information to its data mix

Thursday, November 05, 2009

 

 

Walk Score, the popular online tool used by home-seekers and real-estate brokers to measure how "walkable" a specific address is, has today added public transit to its mix.

 

Hundreds of home listing sites will automatically incorporate the new information, including -- full disclosure -- the San Francisco Chronicle which has an agreement with Walk Score owner Front Seat to link to its data for its online listings.

 

 

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?entry_id=50972&type=realestate#ixzz0W791k1Sf

ABOUT FRIGGIN' TIME!!

 

Walk Score adds public transit information to its data mix

Thursday, November 05, 2009

 

 

Walk Score, the popular online tool used by home-seekers and real-estate brokers to measure how "walkable" a specific address is, has today added public transit to its mix.

 

Hundreds of home listing sites will automatically incorporate the new information, including -- full disclosure -- the San Francisco Chronicle which has an agreement with Walk Score owner Front Seat to link to its data for its online listings.

 

 

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?entry_id=50972&type=realestate#ixzz0W791k1Sf

 

NO Transit data for us Clevelanders!  :x  RTA doesn't transmit in GTFS.  UGH!!!

 

My score should be 100%!!!  I live in the densest non downtown neighborhood in the state with three rail stops!!

Report: Fed programs not pedestrian-friendly

Monday,  November 9, 2009 12:14 PM

By Elizabeth Gibson

 

The Columbus Dispatch

 

Federal traffic safety programs don't focus enough on pedestrians, according to a report released today by Transportation for America, a national coalition that advocates transportation policy reform.

 

The report said pedestrians account for 8.6 percent of traffic deaths in Ohio, but 1.3 percent of federal traffic safety funding for Ohio goes toward pedestrian projects, not counting safety projects that may have incorporated pedestrian safety as a secondary factor .

 

More at:

 

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/11/09/walkers.html?sid=101

 

Full Transportation for America "Dangerous by Design" study at:

 

http://t4america.org/resources/dangerousbydesign/

Andrew Knee: Milwaukee – A Walker’s Paradise

Published June 14, 2010 Urban Milwaukee

 

Milwaukee is a walker’s paradise.  Wisconsin’s largest city has made some great strides recently and, as with many cities in the Midwest, if you haven’t been here in the last decade you might as well say you’ve never been here.  Once you’re on foot, you find that this city has a lot to offer in its confusingly large yet compact downtown area.

 

Over the years, Milwaukee’s built form has organized itself into categorized blocks spread across the downtown area that feature various bars, restaurants, and other entertainment destinations.  If you want to see college freshmen go to Water Street, if you want to hang out with yuppies go to Milwaukee Street, if you’re part of the counter cultures of America go to Brady Street, etc.  There are dozens of these little strips that are all easily walkable between each other.  So, when people spend a night out bar hopping they can easily walk five miles without realizing it, and with that comes the perception that Milwaukee is one large neighborhood.

 

Once you start walking around though, you’ll notice that the neighborhoods between the shopping districts vary wildly.  They’re all very dense quite walkable, but they allocate their forms in different ways.  Around Brady Street you’ll find very large Queen Anne duplexes, Along Prospect Avenue people live in rows of high-rise condominium towers, In Northpointe and Yankee Hill there are large, historic, and beautiful mansions, Murray Hill is full of non-descript low-rise apartment blocks, and the Third Ward has historic warehouse to condominium conversions.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://urban-out.com/2010/06/14/andrew-knee-milwaukee-a-walkers-paradise/

 

Cities around the country (world) boast about their public transportation options and walk-ability.  Though Cleveland has a strong bus presence, (and solid RTA Rapid coverage) it would seem that there is much work to be done.  This website shows, in pretty spectacular form, how walkable a city can be.  Note that bus and subway stops become "reachable" in under 10, 15, 20 minutes (etc.) before the areas between their respective stops. 

 

Drop the point in the "burbs" and you'll immediately see how important public transit is.

 

 

http://www.mapnificent.net/cleveland/#/?lat0=41.4980489964127&lng0=-81.69459340845947&t0=15&lat=41.48593007965399&lng=-81.68862817561035&zoom=13

Thank you. This is really amazing. Does this mean that the smaller bubbles are the larger 5 minute increments, such as 15 and 20 minutes?

 

I tried moving this to Shaker Square, the Lakewood and the Detroit Shoreway. It appears that downtown gave the widest area one can reach using public transportation.

It does. as should

The smaller bubbles just mean you can only "walk" to small area around the station (bus, metro, subway) before it would take 6 minutes or so.

 

So if you drop the pin at the Terminal Tower you'll see you can get to a lot of stations and the closer the station the further away from it you can walk before hitting 5 minutes.  So the bubbles shrink at each successive station away from the Terminal Tower.

The smaller bubbles just mean you can only "walk" to small area around the station (bus, metro, subway) before it would take 6 minutes or so.

 

So if you drop the pin at the Terminal Tower you'll see you can get to a lot of stations and the closer the station the further away from it you can walk before hitting 5 minutes. So the bubbles shrink at each successive station away from the Terminal Tower.

 

It doesnt seem to work with the red line on the east side

The smaller bubbles exist the farther, time-wise, those bus or train stops are from where you place the flag. It doesn't matter whether it's a bus stop or a train stop. Note the train stop bubbles show up farther from the flag than the bus stops, because the train is faster. But the bus stop bubbles are so heavily clustered around the flag for three reasons: the buses are slower, there's more bus routes and the bus stops are closer together than the train stops.

 

Very interesting mapping program!

 

EDIT: the info is incomplete. Some transit routes are not included. For example, place the flag on many main streets that have frequent transit on it, such as St. Clair in/near downtown or Euclid east of University Circle. No bubbles appear anywhere on those streets, yet they appear on most others that have transit service.

It doesnt work if you put it on the cedar road stop or any of the stops over there

Yes, so there's lots of data still not added to the site. But it's a great start.

As America Ages, A Push To Make Streets Safer

by Jennifer Ludden

May 24, 2011

NPR Morning Edition

 

May 24, 2011 -- America is aging — a fact that advocates are pushing Congress to consider as it takes up a new transportation bill. Their goal is more safety for older Americans, on both roads and sidewalks.

 

Pedestrians and cyclists are already far more likely to be hit by cars in the United States than those in some European cities. Add to that the coming tide of older Americans who use walking canes and wheelchairs, and some warn that a road safety crisis looms.

 

Read more at: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/24/136585282/as-seniors-increase-a-push-to-make-streets-safer

 

Listen to the story at: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=136585282&m=136602987

Road hogs

Jun 15th 2011, 15:13 by The Economist online

 

A striking relationship between obesity and driving

 

AMERICANS are getting fatter: obesity rates have risen 74% in the past 15 years to nearly 28% of the adult population. And they are driving more: the number of miles driven by each licensed driver (VMT/LD), excluding commercial vehicles, increased by an average of 0.6% a year between 1988 and 2008. Academics at the University of Illinois have  found a striking correlation between these two variables—but with a large time lag. They noted that previous research had found that changes in diet had an effect on body weight only after some six years. Therefore VMT/LD in 2004 is correlated with obesity in 2010 (see left-hand chart). This near-perfect correlation (99.6%) permits predictions about obesity rates. Since VMT/LD fell in 2007 and 2008, America's obesity rate could fall to as low as 24% in 2014 (see right-hand chart). These predictions come with a strong caveat: correlation does not equal causation. And it should be noted that the authors did not control for factors such as diet, income and lifestyle. Additionally, they did not explore the possibility that the larger, and thus more immobile, people become, the more they drive.

 

Northfield Village (where I live now right near Northfield Inn) = 58.  It's kind of funny that it calls Northfield Park a "park".  I make my own coffee too, LOL....so it balances out.    That's accurate, except in the winter.  The sidewalks on Rt 8. are right by the road and get buried in the winter.  The side streets usually don't even have sidewalks.

 

Downtown Bedford gets high 70s.

The Death of Sprawl:

 

What's important here is that the research and the real estate sales figures are becoming ever clearer: people increasingly prefer to live in mixed-use, transit-oriented walkable and bikeable neighborhoods over drive-everywhere bedroom communities. Those preferences will not change and we will not go back, which is affirmed by the abandoned exurban housing and development that are fast becoming the nation's newest slums: for the first time in the nation's history, suburban poverty now outweighs urban poverty.

 

One need only take a look at the foreclosure heavy areas...

 

http://www.commoncurrent.com/notes/2011/11/death-of-sprawl-past-and-futur.html

In the future, urban bikers go faster than cars

 

In Hollywood movies, the cities of the future have speeding monorails and flying cars, everyone careening toward their destination at a zillion miles per hour. (The future always looks surprisingly like “The Jetsons,” which turns 50 next year.)

 

It makes for great CGI. But does it make for a great city? For generations, velocity has defined the urban experience: screeching subways, maniacal taxis, hustling crowds. Life in the fast lane. A New York minute is no minute at all. Even as our roads become clogged with traffic, we think of cities as most city-like when they move at a blur.

 

But look around (if you have a second) and you might notice that a lot of the new ideas seeping into cities are aimed not at making them faster, but slowing them down. The buzziest mode of transport now is a bicycle. Streetcars, a pokey throwback, are returning.

Occupy All Streets video -- cars create problems for pedestrians in our built environment.

 

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Busts Myth That “Nobody Walks” in Rural America

 

by Ben Goldman

 

One reason why Congress may be so willing to eliminate dedicated funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs is the persistent notion that biking and walking are limited to cities, and therefore of no concern to rural legislators. Setting aside for a moment the arguments supporting a federal interest in urban transportation, the notion that nobody bikes or walks in rural areas is outright false, as amply demonstrated in a new report from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.

 

Read more at:

 

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/01/30/rails-to-trails-conservancy-busts-myth-that-nobody-walks-in-rural-america/

People in rural areas do walk. There's often lots of good scenery to be had, land needs to be inspected, chores done, dirt bike trails need to be maintained, the mailbox is far away and going into town often leads to walking around the old town. Outer-ring 'burbs, exurbs and ribbon development are the problems -- they're sprawl. Walking though that stuff can be miserable.