How walkable is your town? (Babylon, Huntington: houses, buy, schools)

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by sean sean sean sean

55 in North Wantagh, not bad for being surrounded by nothing but strip malls. Actually, I'd say for the type of place I live - which would be classical LI Levitt-style suburbia - it's laid out extremely well. I do walk up to the stores very frequently, it only takes 5 minutes and saves gas. I know a lot of my neighbors do as well. Two major bus routes stop right around the block and we've also got the bike path to Jones Beach, which is basically right behind my house. We should really have more dedicated biking/walking paths on LI, I think they'd get a lot of use. I could survive without a car but wouldn't want to....I could take the bus to work from my house, but it would turn a ten minute trip into almost an hour.

So has car culture failed us? I'd say yes and no. The modern concept of the "suburbs" I think, may have gone a little too far from what it's original intentions were, literally and figuratively. I say this all the time on these forums, I don't think having a huge property and being so far apart from other people is such an ideal way to live...it's definitely not the way I want to live, at least. I think what should be the answer for future development on LI is as simple as looking back at the early suburbs and the cities they surrounded. Case in point, my former home - Albany, NY. A much smaller metropolitan area than the NYC/downstate region but a perfect example. I lived at three different addresses within this city, here's how they fared:

Center Square Neighborhood - 91: This is downtown Albany, pre-suburban. I lived in a two story mid-19th century apartment building. The only place I ever drove was to work, everything else was right outside my front door. On the weekends, my car rarely moved save for adventures into the countryside and trips back to LI. It predated the car, thus the layout of the neighborhood was conducive to walking.

Pine Hills Neighborhood - 82: These are some of the earliest suburbs, right around the turn of the century. I lived in a crumbling mansion on a hill which had been hacked up into several "somewhat" liveable apartments. The neighborhood fabric itself was strictly suburban, however since it was designed at a time when the automobile was in it's infancy and the trolley reigned supreme, having a car was not a necessity whatsoever. All the shopping and entertainment needed was easily walkable, and though the trolleys no longer ran the modest bus fare downtown and frequent service made commuting a breeze. I didn't even have a driveway!

Delaware Neighborhood - 74: Now we're in the 1930s, the suburbs are starting to branch out. The original owners of this once grand two story duplex would have most certainly had a car, which would have made it's location on the southern outskirts of the city still convenient to downtown. The score is still relatively high as the Delaware Avenue corridor holds many stores - though the buses only run twice a day. Necessities were placed close by, however the emphasis is now on commuting elsewhere.

That's as far as the suburbs should have gone, IMO. Brooklyn and Queens were meant to be Manhattan's suburbs - while still having their own "downtown" areas for most towns. Nassau is caught somewhere inbetween (having once been a part of Queens). The LIRR makes many Nassau towns bedroom communities, but what about all the others in between? I don't believe anything in Suffolk should really be considered suburbs of NYC whatsoever. Long Island's two eastern counties need their own "city", and modes of traveling to and from it that work better than sitting in parkway traffic.

The only place this is really doable, is the area which once supported this exact infrastructure: Central Nassau County. Hempstead, Garden City, Mineola, etc. At one time, it was possible to commute to this area via every LIRR branch save for the Port Jeff line. The trackage is still there throughout Garden City parking lots and backyards. When these lines were installed, people viewed it as progress - not as the nuisance it would be treated as nowadays. There is actually an entirely separate unused LIRR easement running from GC to Bethpage which could be re-activated to support commuters from far into Suffolk County, they could run both Main Line and Montauk Line trains on it. It's impossible to run NYC bound bullet trains from the Town of Brookhaven as clamboy/Crooks has proposed in the past, but having a commercial/transit hub in Nassau with real jobs would be an easy commute from that far out.

The car would still be an absolute necessity in Suffolk, but many towns could become the bedroom communities that Nassau is now, and development in Nassau could aspire more towards the village center style and diverse living accomodations that predated the modern suburb.

Unfortunately, it'd never happen....but if I somehow had the power and influence, that's the way I'd do it, as well as many other things.

Good topics lately clamboy, I enjoy thinking about these things....wish I would have taken some kind of urban planning courses in college.

who?


crooks

[alexei27]

My part of Sound Beach gets an 18...not a big surprise. We can walk to the beach though.

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by alexei27

My part of Sound Beach gets an 18...not a big surprise. We can walk to the beach though.

Same here in Rocky Point.

I thought we would've done a little better than 20 considering we have a walkable downtown.

Maybe they put the bullseye in the Nature Preserve?

crooks

[alexei27]

I was surprised at your 20. I would imagine an address within a few blocks of 25A would be higher?

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by alexei27

I was surprised at your 20. I would imagine an address within a few blocks of 25A would be higher?

Rocky Point is huge.

Very spread out.

I wish we could get our Post Office and Library downtown(and out of Shoreham HS). They need the room badly anyway.


crooks

[sean sean sean sean]

Scores for Nassau County, by town....some are definitely off/skewed but for the most part I think this is pretty on the money:

Farmingdale: 98/100
Manorhaven: 97/100
Port Washington North: 97/100
Baxter Estates: 94/100
Wantagh: 94/100
Bellmore: 92/100
Hicksville: 92/100
Great Neck Plaza: 92/100
Long Beach: 88/100
New Hyde Park: 88/100
Oceanside: 88/100
Mineola: 86/100
Albertson: 85/100
East Rockaway: 85/100
Floral Park: 85/100
Hewlett: 85/100
Island Park: 85/100
Williston Park: 85/100
Franklin Square: 83/100
Glen Cove: 83/100
Manhasset: 83/100
Baldwin: 82/100
Freeport: 82/100
Garden City South: 82/100
Hempstead: 82/100
Lynbrook: 82/100
North New Hyde Park: 82/100
Stewart Manor: 82/100
Valley Stream: 82/100
Barnum Island: 80/100
Great Neck: 80/100
Malverne: 80/100
Uniondale: 80/100
Bellerose Terrace: 78/100
Carle Place: 78/100
Merrick: 78/100
East Meadow: 77/100
Garden City: 77/100
Garden City Park: 77/100
Plandome Heights: 77/100
Port Washington: 77/100
Rockville Centre: 77/100
Roslyn: 77/100
Seaford: 77/100
University Gardens: 77/100
Bellerose: 75/100
Oyster Bay: 75/100
Westbury: 75/100
Massapequa: 74/100
Massapequa Park: 74/100
Plainview: 74/100
Woodbury: 74/100
East Garden City: 72/100
Greenvale: 72/100
East Williston: 69/100
Hewlett Bay Park: 69/100
Inwood: 69/100
Baldwin Harbor: 68/100
Cedarhurst: 68/100
Kensington: 68/100
Roosevelt: 68/100
South Floral Park: 68/100
Syosset: 68/100
Bethpage: 66/100
Elmont: 66/100
Levittown: 66/100
North Lynbrook: 66/100
Russell Gardens: 66/100
Sea Cliff: 66/100
West Hempstead: 66/100
Roslyn Estates: 65/100
Woodsburgh: 65/100
Great Neck Gardens: 63/100
Roslyn Heights: 62/100
Locust Valley: 60/100
Plainedge: 60/100
Thomaston: 60/100
Manhasset Hills: 58/100
North Valley Stream: 58/100
Lawrence: 58/100
Harbor Isle: 57/100
Malverne Park-Oaks: 57/100
South Farmingdale: 57/100
Woodmere: 57/100
Jericho: 55/100
New Cassel: 55/100
Saddle Rock Estates: 55/100
Great Neck Gardens: 54/100
North Wantagh: 54/100
Searingtown: 52/100
Hewlett Neck: 51/100
Lakeview: 51/100
Munsey Park: 51/100
North Massapequa: 51/100
South Valley Stream: 51/100
Herricks: 49/100
Kings Point: 49/100
North Bellmore: 49/100
South Hempstead: 49/100
East Atlantic Beach: 48/100
Harbor Hills: 48/100
Saddle Rock: 48/100
East Hills: 45/100
North Merrick: 45/100
East Massapequa: 40/100
Hewlett Harbor: 40/100
Glen Head: 40/100
Glenwood Landing: 38/100
Point Lookout: 38/100
East Norwich: 37/100
Lake Success: 37/100
Sands Point: 35/100
Plandome: 34/100
Bay Park: 31/100
Plandome Manor: 31/100
Flower Hill: 29/100
Salisbury: 29/100
Atlantic Beach: 28/100
Bayville: 28/100
Lattingtown: 25/100
Matinecock: 22/100
Old Bethpage: 20/100
Cove Neck: 18/100
Old Westbury: 17/100
Roslyn Harbor: 15/100
North Hills: 14/100
Old Brookville: 12/100
Brookville: 9/100
Muttontown: 9/100
Lido Beach: 8/100
Oyster Bay Cove: 6/100
Mill Neck: 3/100
Centre Island: 0/100
Laurel Hollow: 0/100
Upper Brookville: 0/100

BTW, if this list is to be considered fairly accurate.....we're much more walkable than the majority of the Top 40 cities in America! I'll do Suffolk in a little while...

[TeamExit]

calculating a town as a whole i dont think is accurate.. because some parts of town might have everything in walking distance, while other parts of the same town will have nothing... i think this system just puts the focus point in the middle of the town u choose and calculates it from that point..

[sean sean sean sean]

Originally Posted by TeamExit

calculating a town as a whole i dont think is accurate.. because some parts of town might have everything in walking distance, while other parts of the same town will have nothing... i think this system just puts the focus point in the middle of the town u choose and calculates it from that point..

Yeah, even more literally....it puts the focus on wherever Google Maps has placed their marker for the town's name haha....like you said, some parts might have everything, some might have nothing. Some individual places are definitely messed up (Jericho is on par with New Cassel? East Meadow and Garden City?!) but overall, I think it's accurate if you zoom out and think of the bigger picture.

Like so....GREEN=GREEN, RED=NOT GREEN



Sorry Suffolk, you're not getting one of these nifty maps. That took me over an hour to do in MS-PAINT. BTW, I should really be getting paid for this....could someone from Tom Suozzi's office please get at me?

[WildCardSteve]

Farmingdale is a big place. The part by the downtown village is pretty walkable. I almost enjoyed living there.

Plainview stinks in that respect. There is no village. Just a bunch of mini-malls along Old Country Road.

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by WildCardSteve

Farmingdale is a big place. The part by the downtown village is pretty walkable. I almost enjoyed living there.

Plainview stinks in that respect. There is no village. Just a bunch of mini-malls along Old Country Road.

Farmingdale is great on foot.

I'd consider living there if I had to do Nassau.

Babylons my pick for foot friendly Suffolk


crooks