Downtown Among City Areas Called Very Walkable In Study

By Kelly Garrison
Features Editor

Long Beach residents can rest assured that their city ranks among the top most foot-friendly places in the country.

That finding was part of a project started by a Front Seat, a civic software company seeking to determine the most “walkable” neighborhoods in the United States from a list of 40 highly populated cities. Long Beach placed eighth in its top ten, with the downtown, Belmont Shore and Belmont Heights areas receiving the highest merit.

“There are all sorts of benefits (to walking) related to health, the environment, neighborhoods and saving money on gas,” said Mike Mathieu, Front Seat chairman and founder. “We hope to increase walking and awareness of walkability and to impact the real estate market.”

Long Beach was preceded in rank by the cities of San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington, D.C. The cities of Los Angeles and Portland followed after Long Beach in the list.

Mathieu said the idea behind the Walk Score Web site was to provide a resource for the public to identify which areas are most pedestrian friendly, particularly for people in search of new homes. Visitors to the site can enter addresses into a field that calculates a score between one and 100. It also lists nearby amenities, such as stores, entertainment venues and recreation areas.

“By providing this measure for people making real estate decisions, (a city’s walkability) becomes very transparent,” he said. “…If we can get the group of people who care about walkability to buy more places that are walkable, our hope is that real estate developers will develop more walkable properties.”

Long Beach had an overall score of 69 out of 100 possible points, meaning that while some amenities are situated within walking distance, many everyday trips still require a form of transportation. According to the study, 52% of Long Beach residents have a Walk Score of 70 or higher, while 85% scored at least 50 points. Another 15% are said to live in car-dependent neighborhoods.

Front Seat determined the results based mostly on the “proximity of amenities surrounding them.” Calculations were made by plugging a numeric form of that factor into an algorithm, which resulted in the ranking for each neighborhood and city — viewable at www.walkscore.com.

In most cases, walkable areas include easy public access to a central shopping district, an array of local businesses, recreation areas, schools and workplaces.

Front Seat launched the site about a year ago and proposes to post regular updates to its statistics, Mathieu said.

The company spearheads projects that promote concepts such as sustainability, community, equal opportunity and media and government transparency.

“We look at ways to use software so that we can make the world a better place online,” he said.

A color-coded map of statistics gathered on walkability in Long Beach is at www.walkscore.com/rankings/Long_Beach. For more information about Front Seat, visit www.frontseat.org.