Mapping Walkability in San Francisco

Lee Byron, recent Carnegie Mellon grad and newly inducted New York Times graphics intern, maps walkability in San Francisco. He scraped Walk Score for uh, walk scores, which are scores from 0-100 based on the amenities around a location like "nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc" - how easy it is to live without a car.

Color was calculated on a per pixel basis using bicubic interpolation. From there he let Processing do the graphical labor to construct a map overlay. The result, which is accurate to the block, is a pretty one.

If you want data (sans map) for your own neighborhood, Lee has kindly provided the scraper.

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Comments

nousha.com
Jul 24, 2008, 2:34 pm

Great study. That definitely comfort me in my choice of living in SF!

Trevor Stone
Jul 30, 2008, 8:27 pm

In San Francisco, one element of walkability is whether you’re on the bottom of a hill and your destination is at the top of a hill. Ten blocks in San Francisco is not the same thing as ten blocks in Miami.

steve
Aug 5, 2008, 3:02 am