Walk Score

Less than one week after we launched transit on Walk Score, 3 new transit agencies have opened their data and are now live on Walk Score:

• Cleveland, OH Regional Transit Authority
• Kansas City, MO KCATA
• San Diego, CA North County Transit District

Kudos to these forward-looking transit agencies!

But get this… Over 400+ transit agencies have made their public transit feeds available to Google—but only 40+ have made that data available to the public!

Sign our petition to open up transit data.

Transit in Cleveland, OH

Big news!  We’re thrilled to announce that the Rockefeller Foundation awarded a grant to Front Seat (makers of Walk Score) to enhance Walk Score.

We’re using the grant to add public transit, transportation cost, and greenhouse gas emission data to Walk Score.   We’re also going to make Walk Score open source!

Today we are launching WalkScore.org where we’ll make the Walk Score source code publicly available.  We’ll also host forums there for discussing walkability and other improvements to Walk Score. Visit WalkScore.org to sign up for updates.

So what does this mean for you?

• You’ll see public transit stops on the Walk Score map
• Public transit accessibility will be factored into your Walk Score
• You’ll see your predicted transportation cost and greenhouse gas emissions provided by The Center for Neighborhood Technology

We are grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for their generosity, vision, and support!

Read the press release.

Thank you John D. Rockefeller!

Looking for a bright spot in the housing market?  CEOs for Cities just released a study based on data from Walk Score and ZipRealty that shows one point of Walk Score is worth as much as $3,000 depending on the metro area.  Read the study.

Upset about your home’s value?  The good news is that you, your neighbors, and government can work together to make your neighborhood more walkable—and a higher Walk Score makes your home worth more.

Here’s the value of one point of Walk Score by city:

In 13 out of 15 metro areas, higher Walk Scores are directly linked to higher home values.  Homes with above-average Walk Scores are worth between $4,000 – $34,000 more than similar but less walkable homes.

So why do Las Vegas and Bakersfield have lower home prices with higher Walk Scores?  My hunch is that those sprawling cities don’t have enough walkable neighborhoods to create a price premium.  Also, in Las Vegas residents may actually pay more to be farther away from The Strip.

Read the research report and let us know what you think!

The Walk Score iPhone App is available for free in the Apple App Store!  The app makes it simple to get the Walk Score where you are right now.

Download the app to get:

• The Walk Score of any location
• Map of nearby amenities with walking directions
• No more typing addresses! (use GPS instead)
• Reviews and ratings of amenities

Did you know men are 3X as likely to bike to work as women?

Did you know weather matters less than you think?  Montana and Alaska have some of the coldest temperatures and highest levels of cycling.

What else don’t you know?! The Benchmarking Report from the Alliance for Biking and Walking is the most comprehensive report we’ve seen on bicycling and walking in the U.S.

I love all of the city rankings and state-by-state comparisons. Go Portland!  The #1 city for biking to work.

This video sums up why we’re so passionate about walkable neighborhoods.

Fun fact for Earth Day: according to the U.S. Census, 97 million Americans drive to work every day alone.  Only 6 million take public transit.  We’d like to introduce you to two people who are going to help us change that.

We’re thrilled to announce that Seleta Reynolds and Bronwen Thornton are joining the Walk Score Advisory Board.

Seleta is a consultant for Fehr & Peers, President of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals, and serves on the Transportation Research Board Pedestrian Committee.

Seleta is an expert walkability practitioner and we’re excited to have her help as we work to make Walk Score more accurate.

Bronwen is Development Director for Walk21, the leading international conference on walkability. Bronwen has worked on transportation policy related to walking and biking in Britain, Australia, and Canada.

We’re excited about the international perspective Brownwen brings to Walk Score as we expand our coverage to more countries.

Welcome Seleta and Bronwen!

I’m reading the GOOD Magazine Transportation issue and there’s so much important stuff in it I just can’t tweet all of it.  This issue is a great primer in transportation innovation—go forth and read!

In no particular order…

Great Joseph Sussman Interview: He’s an MIT prof and advisor to DoT.  Love this quote, “Charge cars on a per mile basis, depending on what road you were traveling, at what time of day, in what kind of car.”  He also explains why we’re not investing enough in high-speed rail.

Zach Dundas pines after the coolest bike in the world:

Innovative Buses in Bogotá:

And of course the Walk Score article:

That’s right, you’ve probably never heard the words “fun” and “census data” in the same sentence before.  We’re starting to gear up for our next round of walkability rankings and wanted a quick way to compare the various city boundaries offered by the U.S. Census.

We asked our long-time collaborator Umbrella Consulting to put together this census boundary map so we could look at metropolitan statistical areas vs. urban places vs. incorporated places. Pretty cool to see all 20,000 U.S. cities visualized on the map!

The Walk Score API is churning away as you read this, calculating the Walk Scores of all the cities below…

Homes near transit are some of the only properties that have appreciated in value over the last year¹—yet other than Estately.com, we haven’t found any real estate sites that let you find homes near transit.

Yesterday we took a baby step towards helping people find walkable, transit-friendly homes with the release of our Transit Time Maps.  Eventually, real estate sites will be able to use this technology for searches like, “Find me homes within a 30 minute transit commute from work.”

Here’s how far you can travel in 45 minutes on transit from Market and Powell in SF (click to see the interactive version):

Check out the BART stops in the East Bay!

Here’s how far you can travel on transit in 45 minutes from 4th and Pike in Seattle:

And yes, homes near transit are better for the environment, your health, energy independence, and your sanity.

But wait… how does Walk Score calculate all those shortest path trees over the transit graph in real-time?  Enter Graphserver by Brandon Martin-Anderson.  Graphserver is an open source multi-modal trip planner (think open source Google Transit).  Anyone can contribute to Graphserver and it’s free to use.

Plus, Brandon rides a really sweet Schwinn tandem bike all by himself (we are still trying to figure out why):

News update from Brandon: He says, “People ride alone in their cars all the time so what’s the big deal about me riding my bike alone?”