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Is almost Seattle's? LA is way more dense. Those wide blvds that crisscross the basin of Los Angeles from downtown to the ocean are there, but in between those blvds are hundreds of thousands if not well over a million densely packed smaller streets of apts and houses on very small lots. Also along these wide blvds are thousands of businesses where everyone is within walking distance to these businesses. There is a reason why bus service from DTLA to the ocean is 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.
Seattle’s building density is much better than LA’s
Denver is built on a grid, and there are very few dead end streets in the city. Well, we did live on one that dead ended into a park. If it had gone on farther, it would have dead-ended into Sloan's Lake. https://www.google.com/maps/place/De...!4d-104.990251
Why is it, when walkability is discussed, that people start bringing up transit? Walkability means ability to locomote on two feet.
Dead end streets don't matter if your walking on a huge highway. LA is also built on a grid but Ontario still isn't walkable.
Transit directly affects walkability. It goes hand in hand, just like a very urban ghetto isn't considered walkable because of other factors that go into the walk itself.
Commute walking share, 2016 Census ACS, core cities only:
San Francisco: 10.6%
Seattle: 10.1%
Minneapolis: 7.2%
Portland: 6.0%
Denver: 4.5%
Oakland: 4.0%
Los Angeles: 3.5%
San Diego: 3.1%
Kansas City: 2.1%
Portland surprises me, but maybe it shouldn't. Its density is more about bungalows vs. really dense districts (those are growing), and it doesn't have a huge downtown. Also bikes take an unusually large share.
Denver is more surprising. Its downtown is larger. It doesn't have really dense districts either (also growing quickly of course), but it has some denser areas near the big job core. Also its in-town transit isn't very good (vs. trains that focus on freeway corridors to the suburbs) so I'd expect walking to fill some of the void.
LA, SD, and KC get some leeway for the boundaries being drawn way out, but their numbers are still bad.
This and your follow up post about car commuting pretty much objectively settle the thread for me. Seattle is closest to an SF-style walking environment
Aside from San Francisco (the clear favorite), which city west of the Mississippi do you think has the most walkable vernacular?
What I mean is which has the urban landscape that is the most pedestrian-oriented and human-scaled. The question is somewhat subjective, but you can consider factors such as street width, setbacks, storefront accessibility, vibrancy of the streetscape, the walkability of various districts and corridors, etc.
Dead end streets don't matter if your walking on a huge highway. LA is also built on a grid but Ontario still isn't walkable.
Transit directly affects walkability. It goes hand in hand, just like a very urban ghetto isn't considered walkable because of other factors that go into the walk itself.
I don't know what you mean "walking on a huge highway". I-25 is west of downtown, and there are several pedestrian bridges over it. There are also several places where the highway passes over the surface streets. I-70 goes east-west across the north part of the city; ditto. I shouldn't play into this "transit" issue, but Denver's transit is extensive. Don't know where you got the idea it's not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Bridge https://www.google.com/maps/place/De...!4d-104.990251 RTD
This and your follow up post about car commuting pretty much objectively settle the thread for me. Seattle is closest to an SF-style walking environment
Interesting. To my way of thinking, deciding which city has the best walking environment based on the number of people that walk would be like deciding which city had the best looking bridges and highways based on how many people drive on them.
I think that there may be other factors. Seattle and SF are both geometrically small and my understanding is that they both have poor road/freeway systems. That would lead to alternative commuting patterns. LA is a sunbelt city where many hold sunbelt stereotypes about public transportation and walking. But the public transportation is actually really good and the walk environment is ok.
I voted for Portland because, compared to the other cities on this poll, the streets are narrower, the setbacks tend to be less, the storefronts very pedestrian-oriented. To me, it feels like the winner in terms of being human-scaled and pedestrian oriented.
Portland makes walking easy and pleasant, no question. Narrow streets make jaywalking easy.
Denver has a lot of rail but its transit is middling at best overall, particularly within the core city. Its commute numbers for in-city residents are pretty bad....6.8% in the 2016 ACS. Even Atlanta and LA are in the double figures.
I don't know what you mean "walking on a huge highway". I-25 is west of downtown, and there are several pedestrian bridges over it. There are also several places where the highway passes over the surface streets. I-70 goes east-west across the north part of the city; ditto. I shouldn't play into this "transit" issue, but Denver's transit is extensive. Don't know where you got the idea it's not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Bridge https://www.google.com/maps/place/De...!4d-104.990251 RTD
I find streets in downtown Denver to be very wide at times, and not the wide avenue type, just wide in general. The LoDo area is fine but I find much of downtown to be skyscrapers with not quite enough first floor retail. Broadway is sort of daunting to cross. It has a very new urban feel like Houston.
Denver's transit may be extensive but why its light rail lines are built along the the freeways and easy to obtain railroad right-of-way are beyond me. I live in relative walking distance away from a RTD stop but a walk down Federal isn't endearing and welcoming for choice riders like myself.
If they built the system for pedestrians and not park and riders, it would improve the walkability across the metro. Maybe it works well in coordination with the bus routes, but I choose not to ride buses.
I'm not trying to dog on Denver, it's just not an urban city in the scale of LA's metropolitan area or Seattle's urbanity relative to its land area.
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