Walking here is tops in Ohio

Cincinnati ranked 10th in country

BY QUAN TRUONG | [email protected]

 

Put on your walking shoes.

 

Cincinnati was named the Best Walking City in Ohio and ranked 10th in the nation, according to a survey released today by Prevention magazine and the American Podiatric Medical Association.

 

More below

• See the rankings of more than 500 cities

 

10 Best U.S. Walking Cities of 2008

 

1. Cambridge, Mass.

 

2. New York

 

3. Ann Arbor, Mich.

 

4. Chicago, Ill.

 

5. Washington, DC

 

6. San Francisco, Calif.

 

7. Honolulu

 

8. Trenton, N.J.

 

9. Boston

 

10. Cincinnati

 

 

10 Worst U.S. Walking Cities of 2008

 

1. Oklahoma City

 

2. North Las Vegas, Nev.

 

3. Gadsden, Ala.

 

4. Davenport, Iowa

 

5. Mount Pleasant, S.C.

 

6. Enid, Okla.

 

7. Laredo, Texas

 

8. Springdale, Ark.

 

9. Clarksville, Tenn.

 

10. Lafayette, La.

Honolulu is interesting...I've never been there and I've really never seen a lot of pictures, but it definitely seems believable.  Overall this list seems pretty reasonable.

Trenton... neat!

 

interestingly, Cincinnati also ranks 10th amongst major cities for percentage of commuters that walk to work (6.8%)

I walk just about everywhere in cincinnati's downtown basin.In fact  I just climbed Mt Auburn this morning to get to my voting precinct. :-D

 

Note to Councilman Ghiz,  Open the Collins ave steps back up instead of taking them away from Cincinnatians who use the public stairways for recreation and daily transportation.

 

10 Worst U.S. Walking Cities of 2008

 

2. North Las Vegas, Nev.

 

 

 

^interesting.  Las Vegas and North Las Vegas are very hard to differentiate between the two if you are a tourist.  You would think that since it is a travel destination that walking would be somewhat of a part of life, but then again, most of the activity takes place either on the Strip or a mile or so away on Freemont Street.  Along Las Vegas Blvd. (The Strip) and Freemont Street, I found it very easy and comfortable to walk, but refer to the previous sentence. 

I walked to my voting precinct as well this morning.  Yesterday I walked to Kentucky.

I bet if you live in Vegas and don't do your daily business on the strip you can't get anywhere on foot.

Cincy's a pretty good walking town, but I can't see Philadelphia not making the list ahead of it.  And btw, having Boston and Cambridge as separate cities is pretty cheap as is putting Ann Arbor, a college town in the Detroit metro area, on the list.  And speaking of Detroit, this rail transit-less sprawl-town deserves to be on the 10 worst list.  As a city/metro area, it's the pits for walking when you get outside the few pockets like the aforementioned Ann Arbor, Royal Oak, Birmingham and Greektown, downtown... The Car Capital of the World is downright hostile to pedestrians.

 

... btw, Cleveland may not be among the best walking towns, but I don't think it gets the credit it deserves and, as downtown continues strengthen, it will only get better.

Yeah...Philly is a fantastic walking town more so in the center city though.  Cincinnati's walkability extends into just about every neighborhood including the center city.  I also did not understand the separation of Cambridge and Boston...technicality I guess.

Well, the list seems to be looking at municipalities as opposed to metros... and these lists always seem to feature strange methodologies factoring in sometimes dubious criteria.  But overall the list looks suprisingly good... although combining major cities with small college towns on the same list is slightly idiotic. 

 

btw, Philadelphia ranks 8th amongst major cities for % who walk to work at 8%.

Well, the list seems to be looking at municipalities as opposed to metros... and these lists always seem to feature strange methodologies factoring in sometimes dubious criteria.  But overall the list looks suprisingly good... although combining major cities with small college towns on the same list is slightly idiotic. 

 

Yeah, this isn't a list of the "most walkable" cities, but the "Best Walking" cities.  They changed from rating the 100 biggest cities (Cincy was 64th last year, 20th the year before (what changed?))  This year they rated the 10 biggest cities in each state.  Therefore, the suburb, North Las Vegas, Nevada, gets rated as a city separate from Las Vegas.

 

I think it would have been more interesting if they had classified the cities by type: central, suburb, college town, resort, etc.

what changed was the methodology

It seems pretty accurate to me. Small towns are a whole different ball game. They should get their own study. The smaller a town is, the more likely you are to drive out of town for various services/amenities. Metros can be just as misleading when you consider how sprawl effects the outskirts of almost every city. If you're a city dweller, you'll almost never go to most sububan and exurban areas.

Well, it's very difficult to rank the "walkability" of a metro... since it's so vast and largely auto-dependent sprawl... the numbers would be so miniscule (gee, what's the difference between 0.5% walking to work and 0.6%? lol).  Ranking municipalities might be better... but it can often be comparing apples to oranges as municipal boundaries vary so vastly across the country... and even within states (Cincy vs. Columbus, for example).  Generally, older Northeast and Midwestern cities are most often locked into small corporate boundaries... which should favor them when it comes to the "percentage of people walking to work" (cited as one component of the methodology).  Sunbelt (and a few northern cities like Indy and Columbus) generally are quite huge due to liberal annexation laws and include vast areas of sprawl or even empty land.  This would bring down their "walking to work" percentage... but who knows... it might help their "green space" quotient... depending on how it's measured.  But basically, IMO, the best major walking cities are your old Northeastern, Midwest, and "upper" West Coast cities (with a few exceptions on both sides of the fence).  Places with dense, mixed-use, functional legacy urban environments. 

Interesting that Cincinnati is listed as a Top 10 and in this thread and now there's some credibility to this list...I thought all lists suck and are bullshit...ehhemm...Randy

I think my longest walk in Cincinnati was from Jim's Auto Clinic at the corner of North Bend & Cheviot to UC, about 8 miles.  I think there are continuous sidewalks all the way to I-275 on Reading & Montgomery Rd., about 16 miles from downtown.  Maybe that would be a better measurement of walkability.   

 

In Columbus I walked from Dublin to OSU several times, about 11 miles, but it was socially hostile when not physically hostile (no sidewalks).  Even the bus drivers pulled over a few times assuming I needed a ride and I was like nah buddy I'm just out for a walk. 

   

Interesting that Cincinnati is listed as a Top 10 and in this thread and now there's some credibility to this list...I thought all lists suck and are bullshit...ehhemm...Randy

 

Calling out other forumers is never tolerated on this forum. This is also known as trolling. Consider yourself warned.

Interesting that Cincinnati is listed as a Top 10 and in this thread and now there's some credibility to this list...I thought all lists suck and are bullshit...ehhemm...Randy

 

Not all lists...just the worthless ones.  The list that ranked Cincy as having one of the best nightlifes was also worthless - even though it sounded good for Cincy.  This list seems to just make more sense with their methodology, and final rankings...something that not just I have noted in this thread.

Mr. Pope...doesnt everyone on this blog call out everyone else, hence what makes it so damn fun to post?

 

Can you define troller?

You're only allowed to make others look stupid by being better at arguing. Hell, that's all we do. But that's also why this forum is a giant sausage festival.

Walkability usually correlates with bikeability, but how does it compare? I know biking to/from Mt. Adams would be a bitch. Biking would be easy to get around Downtown, especially since it is the most compact of the three Cs.

Long distance biking is hard in Cincinnati due to the topography, unless you're a bad@ss like JMecklenborg. I'm sure if you PM him, he can give you good routes. Biking from UC-area to Hyde Park is fun, and easy to do.

 

Hyde Park, Clifton, Downtown, East Walnut Hills, Evanston, OTR (If you're not afraid), Newport, Covington, Northside and Mariemont would all be great neighborhood-specific places to ride in.

>unless you're a bad@ss like JMecklenborg

 

Just get a bike and start riding it.  People don't ride up the hills because they think they can't.  It takes about 35 minutes to walk from UC to Fountain Square but only 10 minutes or less by bike.  It takes about 15 on the way back.  You can get up to Mt. Adams from downtown most easily by riding up to Mirror Lake and then riding up to the art museum.  It breaks the climb up.