Well, even the areas where the architecture is not so graceful, like Bethesda, have wide sidewalks.

Maybe that is part of it?

And DC - like NYC - is rather flat. That helps walking mucho.

My first memory of D.C. was visiting as a child with my family. I may have been eight, the oldest of three boys. I vividly remember one man beating the living crap out of another across the street while my very sheltered mother tried to herd us away as quickly as possible. "Come along kids! Keep walking! Now! Don't stare!"

Wow, that was fun. The blood kinda looked like ketchup. I've visited several times since, but that's how I always remember it.

Walking in DC can be alright, but it depends on where you walk. The city is so deeply decayed in many ways that walking through a few areas, even when surrounded by semi-fascist federal architecture, can be a crucible. The walk from the Greyhound station to Union station, for example, seems like redoing the stations of the cross, but with more potential for rape.

By the way, in that last example, 'you' (I) would be Christ. Just want to make that explicit.

Do that walk in DC in August Josh.

wide streets a city make walkable does not...

wide sidewalks maybe.

dc is dense and the sidewalks are wide. the people are young and it is a very liberal, eco/health conscious city.

don't spout any anti-rail propaganda though josh. just because you took a pretty stroll doesn't mean that the excellent mass transit system there doesn't help its walkability. alot.

nobody lives and walks in dc without stepping on the train once and awhile, if not every single work day. somewhat dense/beautiful architecture is important to make walking efficient/interesting, but rail is the lifeline that allows people to get from 'hood to 'hood.

Wide sidewalks are not more walkable than narrow ones. The opposite is true. People flock towards and cluster in areas with narrower sidewalks. It's a paradox. Read William Whyte.

Oh, and enjoying a 2.5 mile walk or not has no bearing on walkability. Think instead about the things you do every day: THAT'S the kind of walking that matters.

Cale,

No anti-rail propaganda intended. I'm pro rail. Were u here during the monorail debate? I'm also pro expanding light rail here.

Metro in DC is cool. Grew up with it. As a teenager I took the blue line in inner NE out to Metro Center @ Midnight home from work everyday. This was before the Red Line kicked directly out to the NW burbs, so I took the Red Line to the Silver Spring stop and then caught the J2 bus to the NW burbs. I leap with glee to these memories.

You also stayed in NW. Good call. It's also worth noting that Adams-Morgan/Kalorama/Mount Pleasant aren't particularly well-served by Metro. People there take the bus to work downtown.

FWIW Seattle's sidewalks in the commercial areas are pretty wide as sidewalks go.

actually, i just moved here during the whole monorail thing. sad times.

sorry for being accusitory. i was just reading the "sound off" comments on the seattle pi's article covering mandatory green building requirements and MAN THOSE GUYS ARE ASSES. a bunch of neocon bullshit smeared all over the place. scary stuff. anywho, that got my blood boiling, so when i came over here i saw your post and maybe subconciously i associated them with you.

take this piece of gold-

"Posted by Big Caddy at 12/4/07 7:26 a.m.

It's not about reducing anything...it's about hiring more and more bueaucrats and 'study' people...people that produce NOTHING for our economy. Furthering the reach of government, the power of government, the perception of need of government - hurtling toward socialism.

It's also about adding yet another layer of cost to make sure only the desired class can afford to live here.

And China laughs."

study people. china laughs indeed.

or this one-

"Posted by Checkyourrealty at 12/4/07 8:21 a.m.

You Seattlites with clear thinking minds better wake up and get rid of these wacko's in your City Government before its too late. Don't let the flaky few take down the city to a lower level already attained. Business owners need to relook about building in King County and move/build elsewhere, take a good look at Yakima. Warming may be here but not due to mankind. Anyone who thinks we're responsible needs to sit down and take a deep breath and think clearly. Study yourself this matter and come to your own conclusion not what a politician or hollywood says. Remember their multi-millionaires do you really think they'll give up what they have, no they want you to give up your way of life. Now your city council is running around like chicken little. Too much PC for me."

yes.. yakima.

how the hell are we supposed to convince these people to vote for light rail?

@9,
Oh my. Thanks for dropping that knowledge, FNARF.
Wev.

I've uploaded a walking tour (3:40 minutes) video of a walk from my house in upper Northwest to my office at NASA in the New Southwest. It's a 7 mile walk and starts across the street from Reno Park and crosses through Tehleytown, Cleveland and Woodley Park neighborhoods and then through Adams-Morgan and the "circle" district of Massachusetts (Scott/Thomas) and then through the non-profit corridor of Massachusetts and finally the Courthouse District then the Mall area and finally my building in "New Southwest" between the railroad and SW Freeway - it's a great visual exposition of what makes DC a walkable city.

The URL is http://homepage.mac.com/credmond/nw2swFullVidCorrect.html > - it's a 51.8 meg movie (hi qual) and should stream nicely - it can be downloaded and played fullscreen to best advantage. The sound track is very appropriate - a Jesus Jones tune.

Two more things -

the video is linked to my name in both posts, and;

I lived 8 minute walk from Tenleytown Metor station and 10 minutes from Friendship Heights Metro station - in a single-family neighborhood three blocks off Wisconsin Avenue NW and 5 blocks off Connecticut Avenue NW about a mile inside the DC limit.

DC does feel pretty walkable.

Seattle ranks higher than Portland in using mass transit. How can this be. We all know that Portland has the MAX system, which was built by magical fairies, costs absolutely nothing, is so clean that fine restaurants regularly cater meals on the floor of the individual rail cars, cures cancer and prevents global warming.

Here in Seattle we just have icky buses, which according to Erica C. Barnett and Dan Savage are full of icky handicapped people, stinky homeless people, icky black people selling drugs, and other people who aren't good and wholesome and white like Dan and Erica. Yet despite the fact that according to Barnett and Savage our buses are nothing more than noisome mobile leper colonies that move slowly and are never on time more people in Seattle use them than Portland's paradisiacal light rail system. Hmmmm, maybe light rail, is, oh, I don't know, incredibly oversold and the people who advocate for it are, I don't know, ignorant, full of shit and complete hypocrites who will never use public transit but just piss and moan about the lack of light rail so that they can sound as if they're doing something while they drive their cars to work.

wait, and how the fuck is LA more walkable than Philadelphia? granted, I spent a couple years in LA and four days in Philly, but I walked across the city on one of those four, and none of those 365x2...

Shambled!

The hills are a huge deal here, if you're not an athlete. I've walked from my place in Fremont to Westlake Center. . . but I haven't walked the other way! And that isn't even a steep walk. Used to walk to work on Dexter from Capitol Hill. Walking to work was an easy 2.5 mile stroll. Walking back was a hike.

#18

i suppose 72% of seattleites are "ignorant, full of shit and complete hypocrites"

http://seatrans.blogspot.com/2007/11/prop-1-survey-released.html

you should travel more. the rest of the world runs on trains because compared to busses they are fast, convenient, logical, comfortable, and reliable. they also tend to attract a more diverse range of people riding them.

it's downright embarrassing that seattle doesn't have anything yet.

1. It is about wider sidewalks, because then you can have a protective strip between the traffic and the pedestrians (trees, parked cars, whatever).
Lots of sidewalks in Seattle don't have that type of protective strip. Aurora, Roosevelt, etc.

2. Wider siewalks do make it more walkable because this does make the streetscape more open and light filled andable to handle more meandering pedestrians. But we can't change that about Seattle.

3. Wider street corridors with lots of public fountains, cirlcles, squares, etc. in DC...make it more walkable but we can't change that about Seattle. On the other hand we have great water views.

4. The main impact of our narrower street corridors is more congestion creating a greater need for rapid transi. Major Seattle arterials just have 1 or 2 lanes of moving traffic each way. ("Broadway" -- not exactly broad; Denny; 10th up to Capitol Hill;
80th From Aurora to I 5).
We just don't have broad avenues connecting everything like DC or LA or most cities. This means that rapid transit when we get it will be successful. The street system just does not have the capacity that it has in other cities.

5. So why don't people in Seattle take longish 3 and 7 mile walks like some folks do in DC?
One reason is our street system is actually hostile to these longer routes. How exactly do you walk from West Seattle to downtown? Not clear. From Rainier Valley over to West Seattle? Not clear.

If you don't live in north Seattle freqeuntly you would not know the smaller streets that cross the freeway.

This could be addressed with posting major walking trail route signs everywhere as they are working on in the West Seattle Trails project.

We also just don't have a natural grid or avenue system that makes it intuitive how to get anywhere.

We are broken into archipelagos of neighborhoods. Fortunately this broken up ness and lack of major avenues everywhere is what makes lots of our neighborhoods so charming and small town feeling.

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