website review: walkscore.com

Apparently, where I live it is a very walkable place. I came across the site http://www.walkscore.com/ on the New York Times website. Walkscore.com’s motto is for you to find “a walkable place to live,” or at least see how walkable where you live is. The website is interesting and draws awareness to car-dependency, but the website may not be as good as it seems at first glance.

The niche group for this site has to be people on the move (who like to walk or want to use their car less) looking for a great place to live. Because really, I’m not going to look at this site, find a great place to move, and move there. And the site really isn’t for showing people how walkable the area around their home is. Really?! For example: my parents. They live in the middle of nowhere. They aren’t going to go to this site, put in their address, and then say, “Oh, we never knew our house was so car dependent.” And they also aren’t thinking, “Hey, I saw that home for sale downtown (you know, the house that is closer to all the shops) let’s go to walkscore.com and see if it is more walkable than our house.” Of course they are not going to do that – it just is. So, it is clearly for people trying to move to a new place.

One slight, huge, problem with the website; the information it gives – sucks. For example: me. Where does it tell me to do my grocery shopping? Well of course the local 7-Eleven. Where else do you go, right? Eventually it does list an actual grocery store. Too bad as a local resident I know not to shop at that particular grocery store. It doesn’t list or have an option to list the grocery store I would shop at or prefer to shop at. This is key for someone that doesn’t know the area. My place may seem walkable with all the local 7-elevens around, but in reality is not. So, if someone does spot this mistake they still can’t fix it, because they can’t search where they would shop or prefer to shop.

Let’s keeping going with this example: movie theatres. For this, the closest listing is actually not a movie theatre, but a modeling agency and probably not one that the kids should be going to. This also goes with clothing and music – well unless I want to shop at the local Italian of Fashion for all my clothing needs.

So, what does the website do well? So, the website didn’t find me any good grocery stores or restaurants. It does show where the local schools, parks, libraries, and coffee shops are. In reality I am not in a walkable distance to a good grocery store, but I should have the option to find one and then have the ability to recalculate my walkability.

In all, the website is fun to look at although it does need some improvements in terms of the listings, and the ability to change the walkability factor. The website also can be good to find local places that you may have not known existed that might be right next door, literally.