Walk Score recently released its updated list of the most walkable cities in the country, and Seattle ranked sixth among the 50 largest cities in the country.
Within Seattle, Capitol Hill gets a 91, making it a “walker’s paradise,” according to the site’s calculations. That makes the Hill the 10th most walkable “neighborhood” in the city, which the Denny Triangle taking the top spot. First Hill comes in at number six, with a score of 94.
Walk Score is a website that calculates the walkability of any place in the country. Basically, by looking at amenities within an easy walk, the site determines how easy it would be to live a car-lite life in any particular location. For the neighborhood scores, the site averages all points with neighborhood.
The Hill’s ranking was diminished significantly by the inclusion of Interlaken Park within its bounds. However, the folks at Walk Score did redraw the borders of the neighborhood since 2008, when the neighborhood ranked 12th in the city. They must have been listening to our complaints.
But walkability on the Hill is well-known. Much of the neighborhood, such as many locations along Broadway, get perfect scores from the site. In general, the further east from Broadway, the lower the score. For example, 15th and Republican scores a 91, while 19th and Republican scores a measly 80.
You can go online and check out your home’s Walk Score. The site also calculates your Transit Score, which looks at how easy it would be to make the majority of trips using public transit.
but it can be slightly misleading, if you don’t take it all in context. For instance: downtown is shown as being nearly all green, but after a certain hour nothing’s really open.
It would be a huge undertaking, but I would love to see a temporal WalkScore. Grocery stores and restaurants would only count if they’re really accessible at a given hour. (then you could adjust for nightlife, etc).
They have an API – maybe I should play with it.
I love that First Hill ranked so high on the Walk Score. I’ve been telling people for years that it’s literally a five minute walk either to downtown or Capitol Hill. I think it’s the best of both worlds
Wish the walkways were fixed in some areas. Makes it impossible to roller skate around. Walking is fine, But skating? Totally impossible with how terrible the sidewalks are in seattle! Really handicap unfriendly too. Ought to fix this as they did on the eastside.
Yet we have buses for that. People can be so lazy even when the walk is short!
Can’t you go to Skate King? The 80s ended a long time ago.