Watch Where You’re Walkin’

  • Just how easy is it to hoof it in your 'hood? A Seattle software company called FrontSeat created WalkScore.Com. The programmeers claim the site indicates whether a neighborhood offers residents enough amenities to get out of their cars. They hope people will consider the site's "walkability" scores when choosing a place to live. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Picking a place to live can be a huge
environmental decision. Some people argue
if you can walk to everything you need, you’ll
stay out of your car, and that will cut air
pollution. But how do you compare how ‘walkable’
one place is to another? Shawn Allee looks at a Web site that aims to make that a breeze:

Transcript

Picking a place to live can be a huge
environmental decision. Some people argue
if you can walk to everything you need, you’ll
stay out of your car, and that will cut air
pollution. But how do you compare how ‘walkable’
one place is to another? Shawn Allee looks at a Web site that aims to make that a breeze:

When urban planners want to know exactly how ‘walkable’ a neighborhood is, they
commission a study, and get results in weeks or months.

One computer programmer says this approach is poky.

“And so we built a piece of software that would let anyone look up to what they
could walk to from their address.”

Matt Lerner helped build a Web site called Walk Score dot com.

You don’t have to be an urban planner to use it.

Anyone can just type in an address, and …

“We tell you all the closest schools, parks, retail stores, so you can see exactly what
that neighborhood looks like.”

Walk Score dot com also spits out a number between zero and a hundred.

If a place scores above ninety, the site calls that a ‘walker’s paradise’.

Lerner says the computer ignores stuff like weather and hills, but there’s a reason behind
that.

“Research on why people walk has shown the number one predictor of whether
people will walk is whether there’s something good to walk to.”

This is all well and good, but does Walk Score dot com work?

I want to test it out – so I ask Lerner to score a Chicago neighborhood close to me.

“If you look at Logan Square, you can see it has a walk score of 86. So if you’re
living near Logan Square, you can get by without driving very often, or even owning
a car perhaps.”

Really?

I head to Logan Square and ask people, does the neighborhood deserve the high score?

Resident: “Yeah, we’ve got a movie theater, a grocery store, restaraunts and bars.”

Resident: “Yes, you can really minimize your use of a car.”

Resident: “Everything’s close – even jewelry stores, furniture stores, grocery stores.
It’s pretty easy to get around walking.”

Most of the people I speak to say the Web site’s pretty much got it right. This is a
very walkable neighborhood. But there’s an activist who works on making the
neighborhood more walkable. He’s not convinced the web site’s got it 100% right.
He says it leaves out some things, for example, this:

(sound of dog barking)

“You’re talking about kids walking to school? That house, that’s a barrier.”

And, Ben Helphand says the Web site doesn’t just miss dogs. It misses other things
that intimidate walkers.

“They should factor in these things that are known to decrease the walkability of the
neighborhood, a big gas station complex, a drive-through bank which is right
behind us.”

Shawn Allee: “Only because they’re hard to walk by, because cars are coming in
and out?”

Ben Helphand: “And because they disincentive people getting out of their cars,
because they’re designed to keep people in their cars.”

The programmers admit the Walk Score site leaves out a lot. Helphand says he’s a
fan of the site, it’s just that it’s tailored to one purpose.

“Their real target audience is people who are moving or relocating and they want
walkability to be a factor in that choice.”

Helphand says the site gives the impression that people interested in walkability have
only one choice to make – where to live.

He wants them to make lots of choices over time.

He wants them to fix bad sidewalks, tame scary dogs, and support zoning laws that favor
walking over driving.

Helphand says if that happens enough, we can make new walkable neighborhoods – not
just rank ones that already exist.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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INTERVIEW: creativecitizen.com CREATORS

If you spend a lot of time on the Internet,
you probably know about MySpace, and Facebook, and
maybe you use Wikipedia to look up things quickly.
Well a couple of guys in California are combining
social networking, web content, and citizen action
to make a green website called Creative Citizen-dot-
com. Lester Graham spoke with Scott Badnoch and Argum DerHartunian:

Transcript

If you spend a lot of time on the Internet,
you probably know about MySpace, and Facebook, and
maybe you use Wikipedia to look up things quickly.
Well a couple of guys in California are combining
social networking, web content, and citizen action
to make a green website called Creative Citizen-dot-
com. Lester Graham spoke with Scott Badnoch and Argum DerHartunian:

Scott Badnoch and Argum DerHartunian: “CreativeCitizen-dot-com is based on the idea that we need
to infuse action into people’s lives when it comes to the green movement. So, we call ourselves
the action-based green community. And it’s essentially where Wiki meets social networks. So,
we’ve taken the best of both worlds and put them together. And so, instead of trying to be a static
content provider, what we do is we open up the playing field for the entire community to be
involved.”

Lester Graham: “Now, when you’re talking about opening up to the whole community, that just
seems you’re asking for a lot of misinformation to be passed around. Who’s monitoring this to
make sure that you ensure accuracy on this thing?”

Badnoch and DerHartunian: “It’s very rare that people provide things that are absolutely incorrect.
Now, at the same time, we also have experts. And I’d also like to add that our experts really guide
the process. They show people where to go to find more information, so then more eyes are
actually looking at it, and making sure the information is actually accurate and effective in the real
world.”

Graham: “Well, even among the experts there’s an amazing amount of confusion about everything
from everyday questions like ‘paper or plastic?’, to lawn care, purchases we make – how do you
plan to get around some of those complicated issues that might depend on where you live, or other
circumstances of your locale or your lifestyle?”

Badnoch and DerHartunian : “We’re not saying we are the sort of all-knowing Gods of green, but, in
reality, we’re saying ‘hey, we don’t know’, and neither does the vast majority of people. So let’s all
contribute, and put the knowledge that we do have together, so we can actually get a more clear
understanding of what this green-thing is.”

Graham: “Your CreativeCitizen-dot-com site seems like it might just be the perfect opportunity for
some of these corporations to come in and really spin things for systems that might not be that
great. How will you compete with corporate green-washing you might see on your site?”

Badnoch and DerHartunian: “On CreativeCitizen-dot-com, we’ve created an organic R&D system,
where each creative solution is uniform in a sense, and users can come and comment on
solutions, and edit them. And companies are really putting themselves out there by saying ‘this
product or service really has this benefit or savings’. And people can say, ‘well, I’ve tried this at
home and it doesn’t have these savings’, ‘I’ve researched this product and you’re using these types
of methods to produce this and manufacture this product and it’s not good for the environment’.
Or, vise-versa, saying that this is good, and really bringing the real green products that are not
green-washed to the forefront.”

Graham: “What have you learned on CreativeCitizen-dot-com that made you a more
environmentally responsible person?”

Badnoch and DerHartunian: “Well, I’ve transformed my entire life since the process of really
understanding sustainability. But one of the main things is really understanding that efficient living
and sustainable living is not about a sacrifice. It’s about really putting in these little acts into your
daily lifestyle that really make you happier as a person, more efficient – not only in a personal
sense but in a global sense. So, one of the most simple things is recycling laundry water. I’ve built
a system in my house where I can just put the laundry water in a bin and feed it to my garden,
using waste-water that is actually more nutritious for the plants because of the minerals in the wash
cycle. I like to call it ‘optimize without sacrifice’ – that’s actually from Amory Lovins. Green is really
about optimizing your life, and making life better for you, and then the result, fortunately, is that life
is better for the whole planet.”

Graham: “Alright guys, thank-you very much.”

Badnoch and DerHartunian: “Thank you, Lester.”

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