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Tampa Area Trails Pack In U.S. 'Walkability' Ranking

VICTOR JUNCO / The Tampa Tribune (File Photo)

Joggers may love Bayshore Blvd, but the scenic route did not help Tampa in a new survey of "walkable" cities.

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By RICH SHOPES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 4, 2007

TAMPA - A Brookings Institution survey of "walkable" U.S. cities ranks the Tampa area dead last.

The Washington-based think tank identified 157 "regional-serving walkable urban places" in the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

The Washington, area, with 20 walkable places, ranked first on the survey, ahead of New York on a per-capita basis.

Christopher Leinberger, a real estate developer and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, developed the survey by identifying walkable places as not just bedroom communities but those having jobs, retail or cultural institutions that bring in people who don't live there.

The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area didn't muster a ranking in three critical areas of the survey, measuring the downtowns, areas adjacent to downtowns and suburban town centers for walkable characteristics.

Walkable places have been around for centuries, but Leinberger argues that developers and planners hit on the suburban strip-mall formula after the rise of automobile and stuck to it ever since.

Rail systems played a big part in transforming places into walkable models, he said. The Metro rail system in Washington, for example, changed development patterns and the character of neighborhoods to promote walking.

In Arlington, across the Potomac River from Washington, the rail system gave rise to "urban villages" clustered around station stops. The Tampa area doesn't have a light rail system, except the streetcar that runs from the Tampa Convention Center to Ybor City.

The survey is available online at www.brookings.edu.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633 or at rshopes@tampatrib.com.

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