Jacksonville: America's Least Walkable Big City

[Metro Jacksonville]

Jacksonville: America's Least Walkable Big City



Jacksonville comes in dead last in Walk Score's 2011 ranking of most walkable cities.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-jul-jacksonville-americas-least-walkable-big-city

[Dashing Dan]

This isn't so much a walkability index as an index of mixed land uses.  But that doesn't make it any better for us.

[simms3]

I saw this.  Shocker.

I'm surprised that San Jose, CA is so walkable, anyone can vouch for that?

[Bativac]

Having visited at least 13 of the cities on this list, I'm surprised Jacksonville isn't further down.

But hey! The Town Center is walkable! You just have to drive there! You can walk from Target to Starbucks. Or, if you drive to another parking lot, you can walk from Publix to Starbucks. Or there's another parking lot, and you can walk from Costco to the back of Toys R Us.

[thelakelander]

I saw this.  Shocker.

I'm surprised that San Jose, CA is so walkable, anyone can vouch for that?

I've never been to San Jose but I noticed cities that have consolidated with their core counties all fall near the bottom.  On the flip in, cities with small municipal limits tend to rise to the top.  So to a degree, some cities are being pulled down by having their suburbs in their city limits and others are not because their inner ring suburbs are actually separate communities.

[simms3]

^^^Further down as rank 100?  LoL  I think the only walkable area in Jacksonville is Riverside's 5 Points.  Walking to the grocery store is a must factor in determining walkability.

[simms3]

Yea, but frankly Jacksonville should be near the bottom of the list and hopefully this can be a wake up call.

[Dashing Dan]

We rank low on this index because we have so many developments that are very large and exclusively residential.

[Beloki]

The only way is up: lets try to get within the top 30-40 in 10 years time........

[Garden guy]

Who needs another building permit?...anyone..everyone...building permits aplenty...build what you want where you want at anytime....this city as with so many in america..development has been allowed to explode without thought of the future...got money...go for it..fuck us all up...its ok...

[CG7]

Well I live Avondale, and except for groceries, I walk or ride my bike to everything.

[Tacachale]

I saw this.  Shocker.

I'm surprised that San Jose, CA is so walkable, anyone can vouch for that?

I've never been to San Jose but I noticed cities that have consolidated with their core counties all fall near the bottom.  On the flip in, cities with small municipal limits tend to rise to the top.  So to a degree, some cities are being pulled down by having their suburbs in their city limits and others are not because their inner ring suburbs are actually separate communities.

Yes, not to mention the fact that we dwarf even other consolidated city-counties in land area due to the size of the county, making us substantially less dense than we would be. That has to have an effect on these numbers.

I suspect that the old city areas of Jacksonville would be substantially more walkable than Duval as a whole. Of course that doesn't do us much good from a planning perspective, since the city government's resources (and tax base) must cover the entire county. I also don't expect that our metro area would be less walkable than some metro areas that aren't represented on this current list, such as Orlando.

The real value of this is in comparing Jacksonville to other consolidated city-counties, and other cities with large land areas. It is instructive that we are still behind consolidated cities like Indianapolis, Denver, Louisville, and Nashville, as well as behind other large-area cities like Oklahoma City, Houston, and Phoenix (though of course we're 150 square miles bigger than any of them).

[finehoe]

I saw this.  Shocker.

I'm surprised that San Jose, CA is so walkable, anyone can vouch for that?

I'm also surprised that Miami is as high on the list as it is.  I don't generally think of that city as being especially walkable.

[Dashing Dan]

If you look at the methodology behind this index, you'll see that it isn't really about walkability per se. 

This index measures how far you have to go to get from your house to a store, a place to eat, or a job.  If it's more than 0.25 miles, then it's not counted as a walkable trip. 

Due to consolidation and the size of many of the residential developments that occurred here in the Seventies and Eighties, Jacksonville has way more than its share of trips over 0.25 miles, i.e. trips that are counted as unwalkable.

As far as this index goes, it doesn't matter that we don't have adequate sidewalks or bike lanes. 

They are working on a better index, but these results are based on the old one.

[JeffreyS]

I am not sure this is apples to apples many on the probably do not have their suburbs count against them like we do because of consolidation.  I do think the premis hits the mark in that not much of Jax is very walkable.  We have five points and the area around the Beaches town center that is about it.