data source · draft
Walk Score
A hosted service that rates the walkability of any address from 0 to 100 from the walking distance to nearby amenities and from street measures; its companions Transit Score and Bike Score rate public transport and cycling. Scores are served through a widget and an API.
Movement & logisticsPeople & society
What is reusable: closed sourceclosed dataAPIpartly open participation Scores come through a keyed API and a widget, with branding requirements and a free tier; the method is patented; members of the public can add places that feed the scores.
For each address the service analyses walking routes to nearby amenities in several categories, and a category earns full points within a five-minute walk (a quarter mile), fewer with distance, and none beyond a thirty-minute walk.2 Pedestrian friendliness is measured from population density and from road measures such as block length and intersection density.2 Data comes from Google, Factual, Great Schools, OpenStreetMap, the US Census, Localeze and places added by users.2
Transit Score sums the usefulness of nearby transit routes from frequency, type and distance to the nearest stop, using the data that transit agencies publish in a standard format.2 Bike Score combines bike lanes and trails, hills, destinations, road connectivity and the number of bike commuters, from USGS, OpenStreetMap and Census data.2
The site is aimed at people choosing where to live and at property marketing.1,3 Walk Score says academic researchers have validated the method, and that planners and analysts can use the data in research.2,6 City and neighbourhood rankings come from scoring a grid of points about 500 feet apart, each weighted by population density.2
Walk Score is a hosted commercial service, with nothing to install. The method is patented.2,6 Developers call a server-side API at api.walkscore.com with an API key.3 There is a free tier and there are paid tiers,4 with branding requirements, and the API is supported in the United States and Canada.3 A widget shows the three scores on another site,5 and custom data is sold as a data service.6
- coverage
- any address; the API is supported in the United States and Canada
- resolution
- per address; city and neighbourhood rankings from a grid of points about 500 feet apart
- access
- server-side API with a key, and a widget, with branding requirements
- homepage
- https://www.walkscore.com/how-it-works/
- cost
- free tier and paid tiers
helps answer this question
-
How do sound, light, smell and barriers shape a place for people and for other animals?
needed by
-
Whether daily trips from one address can be made on foot, by bike or by transit, from nearby destinations, connected streets and frequent service.
Tags: walkability, transit, cycling, amenities, scoring