Most Walkable U.S. Cities 2020: How Seattle Ranks

Walk Score, a company of real estate website Redfin, released on Monday its list of most walkable cities in the U.S. Included with the ranking is a database that scores the walkability of communities throughout the country.

According to Walk Score's metrics, cities where daily errands do not require a car score 90 points and above. A score of 70 to 89 points means most errands can be accomplished on foot, while a score between 50 and 69 indicates that only some errands can be completed on foot.

The new report lists Seattle's overall walkability score at 74, landing the Emerald City at 8th place nationally.

For comparison, the top-ranked walkable city was New York City with a score of 88.3.

Behind New York City, San Francisco and Boston are ranked as the most walkable cities in the U.S. in 2020, receiving scores of 87.4 and 82, respectively.

Those three cities — along with Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Oakland, California — have reigned as the nine most walkable in the U.S. for the last five years. Long Beach, California, has been No. 10 since it overtook Baltimore in 2016.

Walk Score also includes a city’s most walkable neighborhoods. In Seattle, the top 3 most walkable neighborhoods are:

• Downtown
• Chinatown-International District
• Belltown

Certainly, there is still quite a bit of room for improvement. Seattle received an overall transit score of 60.1 and a bike score of 70.3.

Oakland, Long Beach, Portland, Oregon, and Omaha, which each picked up around two points, had the biggest walkability score increases since 2017.

To determine the most walkable cities, Walk Score measures the walkability of any address by analyzing hundreds of walking routes to nearby amenities. Points are awarded based on the distance to amenities in each category. Walk Score also measures pedestrian friendliness by analyzing population density and road metrics such as block length and intersection density.