Pedestrian-Friendly Cities and Towns
April 10, 2008
Well, let’s start with this one: my personal, subjective, biased ranking of cities and towns which I have personally found to be at least somewhat conducive to a carless lifestyle. In other words, places where I felt good as a non-driver.
Multiple factors involved such as the ease of getting between important spots by foot, people’s attitudes toward pedestrians, the quality of the transportation services, the perceived safety of the city, etc. My experience is often very specific and may not correspond at all to what others have experienced in those places. I’m open to discussion, obviously.
This ranking is very approximate but, for each of these places, I’ve had some rather positive things to say, as a pedestrian. In fact, my overall assessments of these places is quite positive and I have relatively little to complain about them, as a pedestrian. I guess I’ll flesh out details about each of them, later on.
Here goes. I didn’t live in either Paris, Geneva, or Chicago. But my assessment is rather positive overall.
- Fredericton, NB
- (Paris)
- Lausanne
- (Halifax) [Edit: Friday, April 11, 2008 1:25 PM]
- (Ann Arbor) [Edit: Friday, April 11, 2008 1:25 PM]
- Boston
- Northampton, MA
- Montreal
- (Geneva)
- Laval, Qc
- Bamako
- Nyon
- (Chicago)
- Bloomington, Indiana
Any rankings of worst places for pedestrians? I know you consider Austin hostile, but are there others? I found Washington DC to be rather hostile despite it being ranked as one of the most pedestrian friendly places by some organization or other (I think some city planner professional association).
Yes, I do have a list. One reason I didn’t publish it yet is that I like to focus on the positives. Another reason is that my list of pedestrian-hostile cities might upset some people and I need to prepare myself for that.
But it’s coming.
I’ve never really been to DC so I can’t attest but it wouldn’t be surprising if a city deemed pedestrian-friendly by some organization were, in fact, pedestrian-hostile.
[...] 11, 2008 As promised, my list of least favorite cities and towns for carless living. Again, this is completely [...]