Walkable, Bikeable and Busable Cities of Canada

[Truenorth00]

Walkscore.com has some great metrics on walkability, and how bike friendly and transit friendly a city is. People often use the scores when apartment hunting. These metrics are great to identify walkable neighbourhoods in a given city. But they also have aggregate city-wide metrics which I think are quite revealing on how car dependent a city as a whole.

I decided to pull the most walkable cities in Canada. And some of the larger cities or major cities that weren't ranked.

Most Walkable Cities in Canada (Walk Score/Transit Score/Bike Score)

1. Vancouver (80/74/79)
2. Montreal (65/67/73)
3. Toronto (61/78/61)
4. Hamilton (50/45/50)
5. Mississauga (49/56/54)
6. Winnipeg (48/51/61)
7. Surrey (46/47/56)
8. Ottawa (45/50/64)
9. Quebec City (45/47/59)
10. Laval (4346/57)
12. Edmonton (40/49/40)
13. Calgary (39/50/50)
##. Halifax (63/60/59)
##. Victoria (76/62/80)
##. Saskatoon (46/45/32)
##. Regina (44/41/56)
##. London (39/45/53)
##. Moncton (35/28/47)
##. St. John's (37/34/24)

Source: https://www.walkscore.com/cities-and-neighborhoods/

On this forum and elsewhere, there tends to be a lot of focus on transit and road infrastructure projects getting built. In general though, good transit and walkability tend to go hand-in-hand, since most transit trips tend to start and end with a walk. And the loss of focus on walkability has had a lot of consequences on our cities and towns alike.

Thoughts? How does your city fair? Do you think the ranking was unfair? Is it what you expected? My biggest takeaway is that size doesn't always correlate to walkability. Look at how high Victoria scores and how low St. John's scores compared to Toronto. Smaller cities aren't necessarily more walkable. And larger cities don't automatically become more walkable because of density. It's clearly a reflection of local investment and policy. It is sort of depressing how few cities in Canada are at a Walk Score of 50 or higher.

[Truenorth00]

I'll add that I often say Ottawa is "Mississauga on the Rideau" because of how car-dependent the city is. Turns out I might have been too charitable......

The consequences of car dependency could be at the root of a lot of our debates on ugly architecture, quality of life, health, etc. This famous James Kunstler rant comes to mind:

• Video Link

In any event, thought I'd make a thread about the walkability of our cities and the broader urbanism that goes with that, for those interested.

[MonkeyRonin]

Looks like these are scored according to municipal boundaries, which creates some obvious discrepancies when you're comparing scenarios like Vancouver's 115 sqkm vs. Ottawa's 2,790 sqkm.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Looks like these are scored according to municipal boundaries, which creates some obvious discrepancies when you're comparing scenarios like Vancouver's 115 sqkm vs. Ottawa's 2,790 sqkm.

Their methodology isn't straight density measurement though. They take into account different city boundaries:

To rank cities and neighborhoods, we calculate the Walk Score of approximately every city block (technically a grid of latitude and longitude points spaced roughly 500 feet apart).

Each point is weighted by population density so that the rankings reflect where people live and so that neighborhoods and cities do not have lower scores because of parks, bodies of water, etc.

For our Walk Score ranking, we define "large cities" as the 50 largest U.S. cities. For our Transit Score and Bike Score ranking, we define "large cities" as cities with more than 300,000 people.

https://www.walkscore.com/methodology.shtml

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Their methodology isn't straight density measurement though. They take into account different city boundaries:



https://www.walkscore.com/methodology.shtml

That doesn't address the problem that MonkeyRonin identified at all. Whether or not a given non-core neighborhood affects a city's score entirely depends on arbitrary municipal boundaries and mergers.

Pre-merger Mtl or TO (or Ottawa) would have higher scores. Van would have a lower one if the BC Govt forced it to amalgamate with its suburbs.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lio45

That doesn't address the problem that MonkeyRonin identified at all. Whether or not a given non-core neighborhood affects a city's score entirely depends on arbitrary municipal boundaries and mergers.

Pre-merger Mtl or TO (or Ottawa) would have higher scores. Van would have a lower one if the BC Govt forced it to amalgamate with its suburbs.

True. But Surrey isn't that bad either. I would guess that a Lower Mainland average would still be in the Top 5 of the large cities.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

That doesn't address the problem that MonkeyRonin identified at all. Whether or not a given non-core neighborhood affects a city's score entirely depends on arbitrary municipal boundaries and mergers.

The average is also meaningless except maybe as some kind of abstract planning question. Quebec City has some areas that are quite walkable and others that aren't walkable at all. If you want walkability and transit you'll tend to move into a suitable area if you can afford it.

Of course we can always critique the scoring methodology. I think there is an important subjective aspect that's hard to capture here. For example Brentwood in Burnaby gets a high score. It checks the boxes on paper but the on-the-ground reality for a walker is less nice than the typical urban village type area, and much worse than historic inner city areas with a richer environment. Plus Brentwood is just a tiny island surrounded by a sea of less pedestrian friendly urban fabric.

[SignalHillHiker]

Overall, it's a fair score - you definitely need a car to live comfortably in St. John's. The city is so hilly, and the hills are so steep, that it's really not enjoyable to bike as your form of transit - you have to take such out-of-the-way routes to avoid the steepest inclines. Public transit here is cab or bus, both of which are more a social service for the poor than actual public transit (for example, ours shut down supper time on holidays like New Year's Eve).

That said, I've been browsing every real estate listing in the core for nearly a year now as I prepare to buy a new home. The walk scores they give are consistently bad. My old house, for example, was literally kitty corner to a full-size grocery and the Walk Score said there was nowhere nearby to get groceries. There are houses that back on to some of the city's biggest junior and high schools in the core that say there are no schools nearby. I think they just don't have any idea what they're doing outside the major cities and kind of wing it, or automate it. Our population density in most of the downtown postal codes is 5-6K. That's enough to get above a walk score of 3-6, c'mon b'y. lol

[Nouvellecosse]

Interesting that they would have Hfx at a higher transit score than 9 of the 12 largest municipalities and a higher walk score than 10 of the top 12. Especially having an average walk score higher than Toronto given that our municipality includes not only suburbia, but large rural areas as well. Makes me wonder how high the score would be if we had a small municipality that excluded most of that stuff like Victoria does.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

The average is also meaningless, particularly when the cities are all different sizes. Quebec City has some areas that are quite walkable and others that aren't walkable at all. If you want walkability and transit you'll tend to move into the suitable area.

I think there's value in aggregate data. Nobody moves to a city to stay in just one neighborhood. The more walkable and transit friendly a city is, the more of it, you can access without driving.

Originally Posted by someone123

Of course we can always critique the scoring methodology.


One thing that always stood out to me as being a little odd with the walk score is how well outer inner city areas of some cities do.

Inner suburbs tend to do well on transit because they tend to enjoy coverage. Walkability tends not to be that different from outer suburbs though. With the odd patch of a corridor or cluster of apartments and shops.

Originally Posted by someone123

I think there is also a more subjective aspect that's hard to capture here. For example Brentwood in Burnaby gets a high score. It checks the boxes on paper but the on-the-ground reality for a walker is much less nice than the typical urban village type area. Plus Brentwood is just a tiny island surrounded by a sea of less pedestrian friendly urban fabric.

Absolutely. Being near a strip mall plaza with a Pizza Pizza is going to boost your walk score. Doesn't mean there's no value in relative merit. Still better to be near that Pizza Pizza than not be near anything at all.

Critique of the methodology aside, I'm much more concerned by how few cities, towns and neighbourhoods can break 50, in this country. The low scores in some smaller centres is particularly depressing. They should be the ones that are most walkable in theory. I started the thread to have a place to discuss the general trends too. Thought the walk score might help with context. Not sure a "Great Canadian Bike Lanes" thread would be as useful....

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

That said, I've been browsing every real estate listing in the core for nearly a year now as I prepare to buy a new home. The walk scores they give are consistently bad. My old house, for example, was literally kitty corner to a full-size grocery and the Walk Score said there was nowhere nearby to get groceries. There are houses that back on to some of the city's biggest junior and high schools in the core that say there are no schools nearby. I think they just don't have any idea what they're doing outside the major cities and kind of wing it, or automate it. Our population density in most of the downtown postal codes is 5-6K. That's enough to get above a walk score of 3-6, c'mon b'y. lol

It's not some person scoring it. They are basically applying a bunch of filters to Google Maps (schools, hospitals, restaurants, community centres, clinics, etc) and then either measuring distances to the address you give them or to a 500' x 500' grid for the city or neighbourhood scoring.

It's never going to be a precise science. Not in the least because what everyone values is different. Like I said to someone123, I think the value is giving a relative idea of walkability. Where it's my quality of life sans car going to be higher? St. John's or Halifax or Quebec City?

More interesting would be what do you think the city could and should do to improve the score?

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Interesting that they would have Hfx at a higher transit score than 9 of the 12 largest municipalities and a higher walk score than 10 of the top 12. Especially having an average walk score higher than Toronto given that our municipality includes not only suburbia, but large rural areas as well. Makes me wonder how high the score would be if we had a small municipality that excluded most of that stuff like Victoria does.

As per their methodology, they didn't weight low density neighbourhoods lower so that they didn't penalize a city for having lots of rural or uninhabited blocks in their boundary.

I'm actually not that surprised at how Halifax scored. I think it's a reflection of how dense a good chunk of Halifax proper is. The Toronto Star urban correspondent Christopher Hume once called Halifax the best urban city in Canada.

What might be interesting to see is how much the score changes over time as the city grows and sprawling subdivisions increase car dependency.

[Truenorth00]

There's a great TED talk by planner and urbanist Jeff Speck about what makes places walkable. I think it helps contextualize some of these scores a bit more. Gets away from the idea that a walkable street or neighbourhood is just one filled with shops (though some of that is important too):

• Video Link

The good part about his talk is that he isn't talking about the larger metros which have large walkable downtown cores.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

The average is also meaningless except maybe as some kind of abstract planning question. Quebec City has some areas that are quite walkable and others that aren't walkable at all. If you want walkability and transit you'll tend to move into a suitable area if you can afford it.

Of course we can always critique the scoring methodology. I think there is an important subjective aspect that's hard to capture here. For example Brentwood in Burnaby gets a high score. It checks the boxes on paper but the on-the-grournd reality for a walker is less nice than the typical urban village type area, and much worse than historic inner city areas with a richer environment. Plus Brentwood is just a tiny island surrounded by a sea of less pedestrian friendly urban fabric.

That's the "quasi-paradox of the strip mall" (I recall discussing this with Acajack not long ago). My parents' old place is a perfect example: it's right next to the biggest mall in the entire region. It's a super car-centric built form yet you can go buy basically anything you want on foot.

Brentwood is similar. Perfect on paper, yet you probably want a car.

An even more extreme example would be a remote base or work camp. (Brentwood in Burnaby, teleported to the middle of the Nunavut wilderness, would be just as walkable on paper, right? Yet most urbanites would likely say living there sucks.)

The CAF base in Kandahar is more walkable than the most walkable Vancouver neighborhood: every single inhabitant goes to get their food, their meds, all their other items, and goes "to work" (to their work station) on foot every day. But at the same time, it's not the best urban living experience at all. It's important to distinguish the two...

[Truenorth00]

Do the exceptions disprove the rule?

Generally, I'd argue that walkable neighbourhoods and cities tend to be desirable. I don't think it's a coincidence that streetcar suburbs in most of our large cities are prime real estate these days. The average person may not be an urbanist, but they certainly tend to value these places higher than average.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Looks like these are scored according to municipal boundaries, which creates some obvious discrepancies when you're comparing scenarios like Vancouver's 115 sqkm vs. Ottawa's 2,790 sqkm.

Exactly.

You can't compare cities when they are completely different in terms of their geographical make-up. Vancouver City only represents 25% of the metropolitan area.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's not some person scoring it. They are basically applying a bunch of filters to Google Maps (schools, hospitals, restaurants, community centres, clinics, etc) and then either measuring distances to the address you give them or to a 500' x 500' grid for the city or neighbourhood scoring.

It's never going to be a precise science. Not in the least because what everyone values is different. Like I said to someone123, I think the value is giving a relative idea of walkability. Where it's my quality of life sans car going to be higher? St. John's or Halifax or Quebec City?

All fair, of course, but saying 0/10 for groceries when a full-size one is kitty corner is... objectively wrong.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I think there's value in aggregate data. Nobody moves to a city to stay in just one neighborhood. The more walkable and transit friendly a city is, the more of it, you can access without driving.

Sure but a Toronto-sized city could have Victoria-sized chunks that are great for local walkers and have more to offer walkers overall even though its average score is lower.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's the "quasi-paradox of the strip mall" (I recall discussing this with Acajack not long ago). My parents' old place is a perfect example: it's right next to the biggest mall in the entire region. It's a super car-centric built form yet you can go buy basically anything you want on foot.

I don't know if this is necessarily a paradox. Technically, you were in a walkable area. You could walk to a whole lot of retail (and probably did). It's functional in that sense. Just not very attractive. So not a great urban neighbourhood per se.

And car dependent suburbia is always going to have pockets of walkability. There's always a few houses near a plaza or mall. Their existence doesn't necessarily make the whole neighbourhood or city more walkable per se.

[Architype]

A pretty good, although perhaps crude and anecdotal measurement of urbanity may be how many people you know who don't own a car or drive, or who have never even had a driver's licence. Here in Vancouver it seems surprisingly high.

[north 42]

These cities were also ranked but not in the OP list.

Windsor: (42/38/42)

Kitchener (45/47/55)