what does "walkability" mean to you? (in NOVA-DC region) (Roanoke: co-op, how much)

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by Caladium

See, this is one of those things people say that just leave me baffled. Who cares how many cars there are in a parking lot? Why? What difference does it make to some one walking by how many cars are in a lot. Seriously, think about this for a moment. Is it really better to walk by 5 cars parked on the street than 5 cars in a lot? Or does it really affect your ability to walk on a sidewalk if there are 5 cars in a lot or 20 cars in a lot? If car to human ratio matter, does that mean a parking lot becomes somehow easier to walk by if there are only a few cars in it?

I don't consider a place where I have to walk through a lot to get to a big box store as walkable as one where I park along the street and wander down a sidewalk. But hey that's just me and about a zillion others on here looking for what I've defined as more walkable places.

I would add outdoor dining and low speed limits (25mph or less) as characteristic of a more walkable place. Old townhouses on tree lined streets nearby also. Hmm, just like Old Town!

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Eh--not really. King Street Metro is a healthy/annoying (depending on your view) walk from most of the shops on King Street. And it's an anomaly because of the historic-preservation covenants on most of the buildings there. Otherwise, yeah--it's a good bet that the shops within a half mile would instead be bars.

theres plenty of development closer to king street metro than the main strip near the waterfront. I used to work in one of the office buildings right near the metro, and Ive been there lately. And to the extent there ARE bars (and more raucusness generally) in old town, its mostly in the area FARTHER from the metro closer to the waterfront.

And BTW just today I was near the Huntington metro. Not a bar in sight.

Im sure bethesda has some bars. Havent been there to explore lately, but my impression was its nothing like the concentration in Clarendon or in (metro deprived) adams morgan or georgetown or H Street NE.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Caladium

If crime is a factor, having more or less people on the sidewalk won't help, IMO, because pedestrians will be afraid that those other people are criminals. .

Ive walked in some questionable areas. My fear is being mugged, not someone saying something. The things I fear are rare in busy areas, even in high crime areas. Eyes on the street are eyes on the street whatever the skin color, socioeconomic status, or middle class virtues of the people possessing them. In such neighborhoods being in a busy place is MUCH more important than elsewhere.

[CAVA1990]

For a descent bar scene you need younger people who will ramain in the area after work, and who possibly live close by. There's just not that type of situation right now around Huntington. King Street has potential but I'm not sure if the apartment to office ratio is quite there yet.

[CAVA1990]

Berkeley, which is where I went to school, isn't the safest place (lots of street people) but I'd consider it highly walkable, to a large extent due to the factors I mentioned. Perhaps what we're used to ffom growing up shapes our perceptions and desires. We didn't have big box stores and strip malls to any great extent when and where I was as a kid. I prefer somewhere that feels a bit more like the little CA beach towns of the 60s where I was raised. Someone who's grown up in a different time and place, perhaps like a metro exurb in the past 20 years, may value things differently.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Caladium

LOL, yes this is the "new meaning" that has been applied ever since the word "walkable" was commandeered by the pro-density group. It's one of those games people play these days--take a familiar word, redefine it so that it promotes your agenda, post a few "studies" on the internet to "back it up" and voila people now feel they are no longer able to walk in an area that up until a few years ago was considered completely walkable. Sad, IMO.

By the way, as I noted above my daily walk to work takes me past a shopping plaza with a large parking lot out front. It's bigger than a strip mall, but same idea. I walk by lots of parked cars. So what? I don't have any problem walking on the sidewalk that goes past it, not do I mind looking at the cars. That stretch of my walk is every bit as walkable as the stretch that goes past the trees.

My biggest gripe with this new attitude that you must have 100-year-old storefronts (or some other aesthetic "need") in order for a sidewalk to be walkable is this: what you are really doing is creating excuses for people not to get exercise. They can spout lots of big talk about how they wish they could go walking but gosh oh gee they can't because the stores they might walk by aren't "cool". What's next, you have to have marble statues or you can't walk to work? Or gee, maybe we'll start claiming we can only walk on streets that are lined with Jaguars and Mercedes. I can just picture it: "What, a Yugo is parked on the street I was thinking of walking down??? Oh my god, I can't go, that sidewalk is now unwalkable!!"

Hey that reminds me.... how come a sidewalk is considered unwalkable if you walk by cars parked in a lot, but it's walkable if the cars you walk by are parked along the street?

its not about the stores being cool, but creating some visual interest, and just not being ugly. Which most parking lots are to me. and its not so much the number of cars,as the size of the lots. Asphalt isnt prettier than sheet metal. As for cars on the street, that asphalt would usually be there anyway. Plus parked cars on the street create a buffer against the moving traffic in the street, which increases at least the feeling of safety.

as for excuses, I walk regularly, including places I consider pretty low in walkability, including areas far less walkable than I beleive Ashburn is (and then I know Reston is).

You have said, I think, that you would like the diversity of preferences respected. I don't think calling peoples expressed preferences "excuses" is consistent with that. I would suggest looking at the data I have provided. Peoples preferences are real things, and I think its better to adapt to them than lecture at them (and YES I think the lecturing approach is one of the things SOME urbanists get wrong, and which is deeply counter productive)

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Dictionaries seems to think it does. I get it that it's hip to use this new definition, but until the definition is officially changed in dictionaries I'll stick to the one they use. Dictionaries like Websters, not some urban slang dictionary.

Just my opinion, but I think the hipster use of "walkable" and "unwalkable" is going to make the list of Words We Need To Retire by the end of the year. At least I hope so.

the defintion of walkable you are quoting from the dictionaries is really only applicable to an origin destinatiin pair - "Is the duke street whole foods walkable from the torpedo factory? From Annandale?"

It doesnt make sense applied to a community. Walkable community IS a new usage. I think clearly most people who use it mean not just that its feasible to walk many places, but that the area is conducive to walking. Clearly we have different ideas of whats conducive to walking - and thats OKAY.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Caladium

It's more a matter of being annoyed by communities being labeled "unwalkable" simply for silly reasons like they don't have storefronts along the sidewalks. I mean, really. That has got to be the dumbest reason to label a place walkable that I've ever heard of. Let me ask, is a sidewalk suddenly more walkable depending on what the stores sell? If an accountant moves out and a hipster coffee shop moves in is the sidewalk in front of the building miraculously now easier to walk on?

Have you ever walked past buildings that present a concrete wall to the street? Thats a negative - no destination, no activity, boring to look at, and often foreboding. I dont think the actual content of the business matters that much, though in my experience almost any restaurant or shop is more visually interesting than an accountants office, for reasons related to how those different businesses tend to market themselves(I would LOVE to walk past an accountants office that had, say, art objects based on the history of accountin g in the window)

BTW do you mean to distingushs hipster coffee shops from others, or do you consider all coffee shops "hipster"

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Caladium

LOL sounds like something I once read in Orwell's "1984." I guess I take a more traditional point of view. I prefer to use the meanings that are assigned to words by a dictionary. To each his own.

you should read the intro to a good dictionary sometime. It will tell you that they are recording actual usage, not prescribing it. The view you take is in fact, from what I recall, one that dictionary editors hate. (one negative of the internet age, is people look up words in online dictionaries, and no longer read the intros)

Robb is totally correct, language is defined by usage. A dictionary that doesnt reflect usage will not be useful to aid people in being understood, and will not be popular. Words change meaning all the time (as reading the etymologies in a distionary will show you).

I would suggest you read "language in action" by SI Hiyakawa, or anything on language by William Safire.

and you completely misunderstand orwell. The party in 1984 uses words in precisely the way no one uses them, to advance their agenda and mislead. The last thing I think Orwell was advocating was slavish adherence to dictionaries, or resistance to the organic change in usage of words.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Dictionaries seems to think it does. I get it that it's hip to use this new definition, but until the definition is officially changed in dictionaries I'll stick to the one they use. Dictionaries like Websters, not some urban slang dictionary.

Just my opinion, but I think the hipster use of "walkable" and "unwalkable" is going to make the list of Words We Need To Retire by the end of the year. At least I hope so.

I almost never hear "unwalkable" I here walkable used far, far more, and its legitimate usage. And its used by lots of people who aren't "hipsters" by any stretch of the imagination.

I'd love to see the pejorative use of "hipster" disappear, but I'm not counting on it.