[Durham INC] Link Between Walkability and Social Capital

[bragin at nc.rr.com]

Reyn - I'd be really interested in how Prevention managed to place Durham in the top 37 walkable cities.

This article in the Atlantic this week ( http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/12/americas-most-walkable-cities/67988/ ) does not show Durham in the top 40 walkable cities in the US, either by walkscore, or by percentage of above average walkable neighborhoods. 

Walkscore.com grades Durham as a 40, barely above the average NC municipality score of 38, and behind such localities as Henderson (44), Greeenville (46), and Elizabeth City (52). ( http://www.walkscore.com/NC )

By contrast, California's average municipal score is 53 ( http://www.walkscore.com/CA ), Idaho's is 48 ( http://www.walkscore.com/ID ), New York's is 62 ( http://www.walkscore.com/NY ), even Kentucky has a higher average score than NC, and the city most comparable in size to Durham, Lexington, scores a 49. (I should also note that walk scores in my neighborhood are skewed by Walkscore.com's insistence that a tavern, the Bugtussle Saloon, exists at the corner of Camden and Colonial. In fact, what's there is the Geer Cemetery.)

There may be a couple of neighborhoods that are somewhat walkable in Durham, but outside of King's Red and White and, maybe, Los Primos, is there a grocery store in town that is not surrounded by a parking moat at least twice the footprint of the store itself? And the proposed widening of Alston Ave. will pretty much take away the last vestige of walkability for Los Primos. Even the new Durham Central Market proposed site plan features a parking lot bigger than the store itself, in part because the steering committee doesn't believe it can generate enough revenue without so much parking. Sadly, they're probably right. And let's not even get started on the number of intersections or street crossings within a mile of City Hall that lack the most basic pedestrian amenity, the crosswalk, or the near total lack of enforcement of crosswalk violations committed by drivers in Durham virtually every hour of every day.

It's only 14 years since Durham voters approved a bond issue that was designed, in the city's words, "to construct a sidewalk along at least one side of every major thoroughfare" in town, and five years after the adoption of the Durham Walks! pedestrian plan, we're finally starting to see sidewalk construction in some of our core neighborhoods that were initially built without them. If only improving walkability was as high a priority for our government leaders as fixing potholes.

Barry Ragin

---- Reyn Bowman <reynbowman at gmail.com> wrote: 

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http://reynblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/link-between-walkability-and-social.html

-- 
Reyn Bowman
2203 Shoreham St
Durham, NC 27707
919-381-1497
www.bullcitymutterings.com