Walkscore rates a neighborhood’s walkability on a 1 to 100 scale based on a number of criteria such as proximity to restaurants and grocery stores. Now, they’ve added a transit rating which takes into account a neighborhood’s public transportation options!
Awesome, right? The idea is to “measure how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle,” so adding a transit component makes sense. Maybe you can’t hoof it to the grocery store, but you can walk to a train station that takes you to a farmers market. You can still do your thing car-free!
So why do they need our help?
The Walkscore algorithm uses transit data from Google transit feeds, and not all transit systems have released their information. Even some cities that provide their transit information to Google won’t let the information be shared publicly in a feed. In order to give accurate information for all cities, the Walkscore folks need that information. That’s where we come in!
If you want to let these agencies know how you feel, you can sign the Walk Score Transit Feed Petition. The Walkscore folks suggest contacting your local transit agency directly if they don’t provide a public feed. They also suggest putting together an act.ly petition to help you get heard if your local transit agency has a Twitter account.
[Via Worldchanging]
Image Credit: Sound Transit Link. Creative Commons photo by wings777
About Becky Striepe
I love walkscore, my apartment is an 85. The transit addition will be very cool for the Portland area since the feed we have here was one of the first to be open and available to the public via Google maps.