The most “walkable” neighborhoods are in green.
The walkability rankings are in, and the big news in D.C. is … things are exactly the same as last year. At least, that’s according to Walk Score, which was bought by the real estate brokerage Redfin last year.
Walk Score ranked D.C. seventh in the country with a score of 74.1, both of which were unchanged from 2014. That means that Washingtonians have, on average, access to eight coffee shops, bars, and restaurants within a five-minute walk of their homes, said Rachel Musiker, a spokesperson for Redfin. But it must be noted that such access is wildly uneven across the city.
It also seemed rather strange that D.C.’s situation hasn’t changed one bit given the amount of construction going on in so many parts of the city (also: we were beaten by Miami?) So we took a look at the other cities on the list.
Like last year, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, and Chicago were ranked 1-6, and Seattle, Oakland, and Baltimore came in after the District. All nine of them also saw the exact same score.
So does that mean that somehow nothing has changed in the world of walkability?
According to a release:
To calculate the rankings, Walk Score analyzed over 10 million locations and computed more than 2 billion walking routes for 2,500 U.S. cities. For the second year in a row, the Walk Score ranking uses the Street Smart Walk Score algorithm that incorporates walking routes, depth of choice, pedestrian friendliness, population and neighborhood data.
When asked if it was odd or surprising that nothing changed, they essentially shrugged.
“It does take time for a place to become more walkable,” Musiker said. She pointed out that D.C.’s score changed 0.9 points since the 2011 study. But they also used a different methodology back then, so it isn’t actually comparable.
In case they mean anything to you, here are this year’s rankings and scores (which are also those for 2014):
1. New York (Walk Score: 87.6)
2. San Francisco (Walk Score: 83.9)
3. Boston (Walk Score: 79.5)
4. Philadelphia (Walk Score: 76.5)
5. Miami (Walk Score: 75.6)
6. Chicago (Walk Score: 74.8)
7. Washington, D.C. (Walk Score: 74.1)
8. Seattle (Walk Score: 70.8)
9. Oakland (Walk Score: 68.5)
10. Baltimore (Walk Score: 66.2)
Rachel Sadon