MyWHaT

My home's Walk Score: 77 out of 100 or Very Walkable

Walk Score calculates your home or potential home’s walkability rating “based on the distance from your house to nearby amenities.”

My Traverse City address scores a “Very Walkable” 77 out of 100. This is mainly due to Glen’s grocery store, but also due to a few restaurants, the library and parks that are within a half-mile. As an amenity gets further away than a mile, the points awarded to your site disappear. The result is that many places I frequent  like downtown, although walkable, just fall out of range to count by 2 or 3 tenths of a mile.

I typed in a few addresses from Traverse City and the highest score I found was an 89 out of  100 for an address in the 400 block of State St.

There wasn’t a “Walkers’ Paradise”, over 90, in the Traverse City.

There are some obvious flaws (it doesn’t recognize poor infrastructure), but a useful starting point. Walk Score is now seeking comments on how best to improve on the algorithm at www.walkscore.org so we’ll revisit this in the future.

For now, we want to know…

How Walkable is Your Address?

What’s missing from your 1 mile radius?

How would your Walkscore improve if it valued amenities within 2 miles?

Last Spring Good Magazine ran a “Redesign Your Street” contest. One of the winners was Shaun Smakal with his rendering of an alley in Flint, Michigan with a heavy emphasis on sustainable energy and green technology.

Each winner’s rendering has an interactive graphic & worth the risk of being inspired.

• Fifth Place: Times Square, New York City by Pilar Pastor.
• Fourth Place: Auckland, New Zealand by Aaron Nelson.
• Third Place: Flint, Michigan by Shaun Smakal.
• Second Place: Milwaukee, Wisconsin by Juli Kaufmann.
• The Winner: Portsmouth, Virginia by Steve Price. (Think Front St.!)

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Anyone have ideas or renderings for Northern Michigan?

Until we have our own contest for Northern Michigan, send your rendering/ideas our way and we’ll post them.