How walkable is your house?
A new list from Walk Score, a website that measures a city’s "walkability" using several different criteria, ranks cities throughout the country and state based on how easy are to walk around.
, over in the East Bay, with a score of 86 and San Francisco (85) top the list of cities in the state. California had an overall average of 50 (out of 100).
But, San Anselmo and Fairfax were too small to make the list.
Which leads us to the question -- how walkable are our towns?
The measurements are based on the proximity to neighborhood services such as libraries, schools, grocery stores and parks. The closer these amenities are, the higher the score.
Go to Walk Score and type in your address to find out how walkable your house is and post the number in the comments, so we can get an idea of how walkable San Anselmo and Fairfax are.
Downtown San Anselmo ranks an 82, with its proximity to schools, stores and transit, while downtown Fairfax ranks a whopping 88. But, the outer edges of town have dismal scores because of their distance from amenities -- Cascade Drive scores just a 26.
Nor does the score take into account the quality of the sidewalks, streets and trails.
So, how walkable is your house? Is it something we should be concerned about?
Basically, we have the proximity to amenities, but our roads work against walking to those amenities from our homes. Oh, and my place on Forbes gets a 76.
People who don't live in the neighborhood tend to drive too fast, i.e. Fed Ex, UPS and other contractors. Residents with longer tenancy have told me that they tried to get speed bumps put in but that the town council was worried about lawsuits from car damage. This is just hearsay, I don't know the facts. Interesting article though.