A past client of mine was asking me about Walkability in Toronto and What a Walk Score means. This was my answer, I thought it might be useful to others.
When I talk about walkability I am talking about the Walk Score that is online you can google it. But here is the link http://www.walkscore.com/.
The Walk score of your particular address is low at 47…. Many buyers in the city ask me for a walkscore of 85% or better. Your transit score is 55. That would turn off anyone with out a car.
I have clients in the city that I have sold million $$ homes to. They do not drive cars, or own one. They take transit, bicycles and walk, occasionally cabbing it.
Or they are a member of zip car and use it a couple of times per month. I think it is zipcar.com . They are very happy with it and don’t want it any other way.
This is the downtown lifestyle. Many of them consider cars only when babies make them require one, then it is usually something small.
The more affluent areas often tend to have lower walk scores due to a lack of being able to easily, meaning 5 minutes or thereabouts being able to walk to the fruit and vegy store at the corner, the subway or the streetcar… their favourite local café or pub. Obviously the idea is that they have wider and larger lots.
While in the burbs often an affluent neighbourhood is looked more highly upon; in the city a high walk score is generally preferred.
Moses Znaimer lives in Swansea…. neat places he’s got… Swansea is the west side of High Park down by the Lakeshore up to Bloor. High Park of course is on the East side of the Park to Roncy and also north of Bloor and also called Bloor West Village. Roncesvalles village is on the east side of Roncy or Roncesvalles Ave.
The walk score of anything on the Yonge north south subway is huge…. that’s why the prices are huge, and it is affluent although very congested. Of course Forest Hill is close to YOnge and St. Clair, about 15 minutes walk and Rosedale has it’s own bus system running through it. So it is not terribly walkable and has a similar walk score to your home.
So walkability is all about access to resources using your feet.