Measuring a baseline is the first step towards assessing and ultimately achieving improvements to walkability. Walk Score has generated a ton of news lately–winning a Rockefeller Grant to improve their service, providing a quantitative basis for the CEOs for Cities study that illustrated a link between walkability and housing prices and providing a measuring stick for communities to compare themselves to one another. A quick lookup of our new home versus our old one confirms what I already knew: a 12% increase in walkability, although it feels MUCH greater.
Walk Score is imprecise–it depends on searching google maps for known points of interest like grocery stores and other amenities. But it gives us some relative basis for comparison and can prompt a discussion of what factors go into generating a higher score. Ultimately, when the Walk Score shows up in real estate listings, it becomes a “marketing tool,” and that’s not bad–it helps quantify the often vague assertions in home listings of “walk to shops, parks, trails” which could mean there is a patch of green grass somewhere withing 2 miles of a house. It helps get people talking specifics and reinforces the idea that walkability is a valuable topic.
I’m also impressed by what the League of Illinois Bicyclists has done in compiling a “Complete Streets” audit of road construction projects. They evaluated 46 recent Chicago area road projects for pedestrian and bicyclist safety and generated a 100-point scale that combines ratings for ped, bike, crossing and context to arrive at a “complete” score for the project. That study, published today, was cited by the Chicago Tribune to support their conclusion that “the best streets are built by those who will use them.” Projects administered by the state department of transportation scored lowest, while locally-planned and originated projects scored highest. Big surprise: central planning fails to serve the needs of the community.
These are two examples of data-driven analysis–and how it can influence the public debate. As we talk to our neighbors, we hear so many ideas and so many observations…but it is hard to get from talk to action. The big “deal breaker” of course is money–and I’d love to hear how cash-strapped communities have come up with funds to pay for projects. The short answer is that it is not a short process. There are grant programs that take time. The planning takes time and resources of busy people. At every step, there are questions of impossibility: how could we ever afford that?! The residents will not support it. Someone will object…whatever. These kinds of quantiative tools–combined with a more qualitative–quality of life–perspective and vision for the future are the best recipe for progress…
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