Least walkable neighbourhoods: Rocky Ridge, Royal Oak rankings hit a dead end
By Tom Babin, Calgary Herald October 13, 2011 8:05 AM
For somebody representing the purported worst of Calgary, Erin Stabbler is very hospitable.
The president of the Rocky Ridge/Royal Oak Community Association in northwest Calgary opens the door with a smile, collects herself, and agrees to set off on a stroll through the most unwalkable neighbourhood in Calgary. That’s according to Walk Score, the website that measures walkability by using an algorithm that tracks distances to neighbourhood amenities like grocery stores, retail spaces and restaurants. In the Herald’s analysis of Calgary communities using Walk Score, Rocky Ridge brought up the rear with a score of 4.5. Royal Oak was a little better at 11, but both communities were labelled “car dependent.”
But walkability, Stabbler says, is in the eye of the beholder. She’s heard all the arguments against suburbs like hers before — they are car-centric, disengaged havens for front-drive garages — but she has other ideas. Stabbler argues that there’s more than one way to look at walkability, and, armed with her two preschool blonds in flip-flops, her leashed dog Ozzy, and Ozzy’s business wrapped in the torn-out pages of a reporter’s notebook (she forgot the waste bag), she lays out an argument like a suburban Jane Jacobs.
“We’re lacking in a few areas. But I don’t think of my neighbourhood as unwalkable, and I don’t think any of my neighbours would say that either,” Stabbler says as we set out on the sidewalk along a long, gently curved street. “There are things that aren’t taken into consideration.”
Exhibit A: Her back lane is a green space centred with a paved pathway. A two-minute stroll brings us to a duck pond. Her kids tear around like they own it. “I can sit in my backyard and not even hear traffic,” Stabbler says. “This is almost like a nature walk.”
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