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Walk Score Gets Audited

SwatchJunkies

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Never content, the crew over at Walk Score is at it again. This time, they’ve handed over the keys by letting users provide on-the-street feedback about neighborhood walkability. With their new iPhone app (us Droid users will have to wait), you can mark neighborhood gems, identify problem spots, find neighborhood walking tours, and see what other users have added.

This is a huge step forward, adding qualitative real-world knowledge to Walk Score’s already-excellent quantitative mapping system. Google Maps doesn’t know when construction blocks a side walk (and Apple’s new mapping system can use all the help it can get). By letting local experts with feet on the pavement provide input these maps are going to get way more useful.

Locally, Feet First, International Sustainability Institute, and the Alliance for Pioneer Square used the new app to conduct a “walk audit” of Seattle’ Pioneer Square neighborhood. The audit results are a nice example of how feedback from individuals can enhance the Walk Score platform.

These new tools are a real boon to Walk Score, and will make the tool even more useful to transportation planners and wonks across the region. Crowd-sourcing problem areas and local success stories let’s us know what we need to fix and how best to do it. Kudos, Walk Score.

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Eric Hess

Eric Hess, former senior communications associate, lead Sightline's marketing, media, and other communications efforts.

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Sightline Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank providing leading original analysis of democracy, forests, energy, and housing policy in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, and beyond.

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