This past Sunday, the Wizard took his weekly stroll down to the nearby HEB grocery store, a walking trip that is about 12 minutes in length. I came back home with three of my eco-friendly, reusable HEB grocery bags (promoted by Eva Longoria!) full of groceries that set me back about $70. It was a bit of a strain, as one of the bags had two twelve packs of soda in it. The reusable bags are easily strong enough to survive such a jaunt, but it's never easy to walk home with 2 twelve packs of drinks in one bag. That is, unless that's all I am carrying. One twelve pack is fine, even when packed with lots of other groceries. Nonetheless, my exertions were enough to invoke sympathy from a neighbor of mine, who opened the door for me towards the end of my trip home.
Houston has long been crucified as being completely auto dependent. Complaints abound about Houstonians having to make a proverbial mile drive just to get a quart of milk, or so goes the urban legend. Actually, my grocery store is only about six-tenths of a mile away from me. Better yet, I have access to two convenience stores within 300 yards of where I live, both of which will sell me a quart of milk albeit at a higher price than HEB will. But then again, that is why they are called convenience stores. You pay for the convenience.
Yet, even that relatively short walk is enough for many of my neighbors to notice that I do this. The girls seem to be scared about walking to the store for fear of getting robbed, even though they would be walking down the greatest and busiest street in Houston. Some of my neighbors seem to think that walking to nearby places makes one look like a homeless bum in the eyes of others, but I could give a damn what others think. Still others find quaint amusement over the fact that I walk around the neighborhood to get my stuff done, like one couple who waived merrily to me recently one morning before work when I came walking back after picking up my dry cleaning.
And yet, it turns out that my area of town is quite walkable. There is quite a bit of stuff that can be reached within that 12 minute walking radius from around my abode, including quite a few restaurants, my dentist, my dry cleaners, liquor stores, shopping for hardware, office supplies, some furniture, physical fitness gear, not to mention convenience stores. I have considered buying a bicycle, which would make the Galleria, at 2 miles distance, reachable within 12 minutes or so. I sometimes wonder why my neighbors don't walk more to get to nearby places, but it doesn't bother me too much. They have their reasons. Some might cite trying to scurry across eight lanes of traffic across Westheimer, but even fraidy cats could be invited to walk if skyways were built that crossed the length of the street.
So how walkable is my neighborhood? Well gentle readers, there is a website now out there now called Walk Score that attempts to answer that very question. The website declares that it has an algorithm that it uses to measure how walkable your neighborhood is. Just punch in your street address and presto! you get a score on a scale of 1-100 which measures how walkable your neighborhood is. The higher the score generated, the more walkable your neighborhood.
So, how does the Wizard's neighborhood measure up on this walkability score? I punched in my address and discovered that, lo and behold, my neighborhood comes in at a very respectable 77 out of 100, indicating that, yes, my neighborhood is very walkable. According to Walk Score's gradings of cities around America, my neighborhood would come in at at #4 out of the top 40 cities, beating out every other city with the exception of San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Indeed according the the Walk Score website, I am able to get around without owning a car.
I could conceive of trying to live in my neighborhood without a car. If I lived within a distance of 2-3 miles of a job - say if I worked in the Galleria or off of Post Oak Boulevard - I could just about do it. Even if I had kids, they could take a bicycle to nearby schools. My main problem would be getting to and from my various social activities, as many of my friends live and meet some distance from where I live. As it is, I drive only about 6,000 miles per year, a figure low enough to prompt an auto mechanic friend of mine to say "Wow, you really baby your car!"
Walk Score has a Walk Score map of Houston, so you can look up your neighborhood. My old neighborhood scored an 86 out of 100, which was no surprise to me since I used to walk to a Borders bookstore, as well as a Blockbuster, Book Stop, the post office, a grocery store, and a bakery. And yet, again, none of my neighbors walked around my old neighborhood except to walk their dogs, much like my neighbors do where I live now.
So why won't Houstonians walk when according to Walk Score, they live in perfectly walkable neighborhoods? I've stated some reasons my neighbors have given me above, but who knows? Maybe my old neighbors just didn't feel like walking to the grocery store then and my current neighbors don't feel like walking to the grocery store now. Better yet, one wonders why the City of Houston planning department has poured an enormous amount of time and money planning urban corridors, with the expressed purpose of getting people to walk, when they already live in what are arguably walkable neighborhoods.
Wizard
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at May 6, 2009 07:09 PM