Walkability Index

A numerical metric that quantifies how walkable a neighborhood or location is based on the proximity and density of destinations reachable on foot, such as grocery stores, schools, parks, restaurants, and transit stops. Services like walkscore.com have made walkability indices widely used in real estate, urban planning, and public health. However, traditional walkability indices do not incorporate physical accessibility features such as sidewalk conditions, curb ramps, surface quality, or road grade — meaning they exclude the experiences of wheelchair users and other people with mobility impairments. Research is emerging to create accessibility-aware walkability indices that integrate crowdsourced sidewalk data (such as from Project Sidewalk) to score routes based on actual barriers and accessibility features, with customizable parameters for different mobility levels and assistive device types.