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Philadelphia is the most UN-friendly pedestrian city. First, drivers ignore most stop signs and signals, parking across the crosswalks. Second, the city has decided that restaurants can use the sidewalks for extra seating, often leaving just a few feet open for pedestrians, it's particularly bad in Old City. Third, they've installed some new traffic lights in Old City to intimidate pedestrians from crossing. It will say "Walk" for about 7 seconds, and then a red hand appears which counts off the remaining seconds, sometimes as many as 13 seconds. I can cross the street twice in 13 seconds (I walk very fast). Fourth, there is no enforcement of sidewalk laws, bicyclists are allowed free access (against the law), as well as skateboarders. You mix all this together and you have a mess.
Hahaha, so true. I don't get how it scored higher than Portland. That city is so walkable. Not saying Stumptown should be number 1 or anything, but it should be higher than LA for sure.
Houston should be higher - I never have to use my car. I get up, get on metro to work, walk around downtown, and when I get home, walk around my neighborhood.
He's got some weird beef with Chicago. Just let him be.
Anyway, though I've taken a look at their methodology, and it does have some problems, I think the list makes sense intuitively. LA is probably a tad high, but considering that it is denser than most Sun Belt cities, that it's above-average doesn't really surprise me.
Location: Los Angeles-213.323.310.818/San Diego-619.858.760
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Here is an opinion by somebody who ACTUALLY lives in Los Angeles and not just visits.
LA is highly walkable but LA is hiuge and filled with freeways which gives the impression that you need a car to get around. Trust me, when I first moved here I thought that was the case. Communities like Westwood, Century City, downtown, Hollywood, Korea town, Los Feliz, and Southern communities of the valley are VERY walkable. UCLA is in Westwood and half the students dont own a vehicle. A close friend of mine lives in Korea town and he has never owned a car in his life but manages to get to work in Hollywood and school with ease.
Although LA does not have an enormous rail system, it's still efficient enough for a student in Long Beach to get to Cal State Northridge, USC, or UCLA without a problem.
Another instance would be that if I wanted to go to Old town Pasadena in the morning then Santa Monica in the afternoon and spend the night in Univeral city walk I would be able to do so without a car but just a couple train rides and bus rides.
It's silly to compare San Francisco's 49 square miles to New York City's 304 square miles of land area. A more accurate comparison would be San Francisco and Manhattan. Manhattan has much better public transportation than San Francisco and is far more walkable. To make a comparison with New York City as a whole you'd have to include places like Oakland and Berkeley, and San Francisco's walkability quotient would drop dramatically.
SF's not that walkable. It's walkable, but not even close to as walkable as NYC and Boston. In SF, the sidestreets are simply residential and way too long. In NYC and Boston, there are grocers, pizzerias, and cafes on residential streets. In NYC, people even live above stores, pizzerias, and cafes. And Vegas more walkable than Memphis? No, I've been to both and Memphis was easy to walk around... Vegas was a pain in the *** to walk around. Sorry, but I don't agree with this list.
LA's not walkable. Angelenos only think it's walkable because they don't know what walkable really is. Look at Street View on Google Maps and drive around West LA, East LA, and South LA, northern LA. There's nothing but houses with spacious front yards and a few apartment buildings taking up more land than they need to.
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