A new web-based application from Walkonomics rates the walkability of city streets based on eight factors:
- Road safety
- Easy to cross
- Pavement/Sidewalk quality
- Hilliness
- Navigation
- Fear of crime
- Smart and beautiful
- Fun and relaxing
These factors are distilled into a five-star rating and plotted on a Google map with color-coded markers. Ratings are drawn from two sources: What Walkonomics calls “ordinary people and local communities” and publicly available datasets. The website continues: “By harnessing the power of crowd-sourcing, social media and open data, Walkonomics aims to become a self-organising system where users correct any inaccuracies or errors in street reviews.” Walkonomics wants to rate every street in the world but for now the results cover New York City and more than 600,000 streets in England.
Very cool! Though I question the “smart and beautiful” criterion… is that referring to the streets, or the people?!
Officially they’re talking about cleanliness and landscaping and architecture, of course, but who knows? Once they add crowdsourcing into the mix, anything can happen!
You can rate the walkability of a street by looking at the waist size of those who live and work there.
As a previous NYC resident I wonder why there’s not a factor considering the amount of trash and stench of a street. Sometimes there are trash bag mountainous obstacles on smaller streets that are not particularly easy to avoid!
I’d also add how well planning for walkways around construction are dealt with.