How Walkable Are the Streets Near Your Transit Stop?

At individual transit sites, however, the usefulness of the database can depend on the location. As Network blog Walkable Dallas-Fort Worth explains, when you look closely, the areas within walking distance of a transit station don’t always match what appears in the database:

Each of these TOD zones requires specific attention to detail. This gets at a broader problem preventing TOD planning from becoming smarter, and that is the ubiquitous 1/2-mile walk circle.

As demonstrated by Walkable Dallas-Fort Worth, a half mile isn't necessarily a walkable distance when the street pattern is accounted for.

The issue with the 1/2-mile circle, intended to simulate a 10-minute walk or a popularly accepted distance to travel by foot to transit stations is that not all 10-minute walks are the same. What is the road network like within that 1/2-mile generic circle? How many roads must be crossed? How direct is the route (yielding a more radial pattern emanating from a center of gravity or attractor – in this case the transit station)? Are there highways to be traversed? How long is the wait to cross at crosswalks, etc. etc.?

As you can see (image right), what actually constitutes an acceptable walking distance is FAR, FAR smaller than the 1/2-mile circle, because it takes a similar amount of time.

Maybe, with some tweaking, this can turn into another benefit of the database: highlighting all the places where re-configuring streets can increase the area served by transit.