How Walkable Is Your House's Location?

There is a cute little gadget on the web: a site that will take any street address and calculate the "walk score" for it, i.e., how "walkable" your location is. Scores are 0-100, with 100 being the most walkable location imaginable and 0 being the North Pole.

It factors in the distances to the nearest parks, grocery stores, libraries, etc.

The Global Center of Universal Brighton Centered-ness, not to be confused with Brighton Center itself, gets an 88. That's why my wife and I wanted to live in a place like this: she commutes to work on the bus (hates driving rush hour with Masshole drivers), I bike to work, we both walk whenever possible to shop for daily things. Brighton Center itself gets an identical score of 88.

Harvard Square: 97. Our old address near Central Square: 98. Cleveland Circle: 97. Walden Pond: 15 (Thoreau would be proud).

Courtesy of Newton Streets and Sidewalks.