Of course, I already knew that. The Kitsap Peninsula is a car-dependent region because we're a product of the sprawl development of the '80s. Our neighborhoods are far-flung, isolated developments with no center or focus, and we drive all over the peninsula to get what we need.
There are a couple of interesting things about Walkscore.com. One is that a Walkscore is now included on real estate websites like zillow.com, and they claim that a point of Walkscore will add $3,000 to the value of your home. In other words, walkability has a dollar value today. People want to live in an environment where they can walk to work, school, stores, etc.
The other thing I found interesting is that my walkscore didn't include the availability of bus routes because Kitsap Transit doesn't share their computer applications with walkscore.com. So I filled out the form asking Kitsap Transit to open up and share their data.
By contrast, I checked out the Walkscore for my mother's house in a small town in rural Colorado. She got a 100 out of 100 because she lives a few blocks away from everything in her town!
Isn't it amazing what you can do with a computer?
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My hypothesis is that walkscore.com gets their data from Google Transit, or at least data that would be provided to Google. I work for the transit system in Jefferson County and we have never provided data directly to walkscore.com, but find that transit routes are a factor in my own Walkscore score. We have made our Google data open to anyone who wants to use it since by law it is public information.
ReplyDeleteYou're undoubtedly right...When I plug my house information in to Google Transit, it says that the local transit company doesn't provide information to Google Transit. What's the deal with Kitsap Transit?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.