Walkability can be quantified and empirically measured in several ways. A location’s walkability is typically determined by the degree of which public amenities can be travelled to on foot, the degree of walkability also takes into account residential density, intersection density, mixed-land use, and commercial density. There are several different walkability indexes that exist, but this page will be focusing on Statistics Canada’s Proximity Measures Database for walkability measurement on the federal level and the University of British Columbia’s Metro Vancouver Walkability Index for a more local lens of walkability.
A simplified example of what a walkability index can look like for the Metro Vancouver area.
On a federal level, one way walkability in Canada is determined is through Statistics Canada’s Proximity Measures Database (PMD), an analysis that is run every 2 years. Put simply, the database provides 10 measures of proximity which are provided below:
| Proximity to employment | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a source of employment within a driving distance of 10 km. This measure is derived from the employment counts of all businesses -- that is, all North American Industry Classification (NAICS) codes in the Business Register. |
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| Proximity to grocery stores | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a grocery store within a walking distance of 1 km. This measure is derived from the total revenue of all NAICS 4451 businesses in the Business Register. |
| Proximity to pharmacies | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a pharmacy or a drug store within a walking distance of 1 km. This measure is derived from the presence of all NAICS 446110 businesses in the Business Register |
| Proximity to healthcare | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a health care facility within a driving distance of 3 km. This measure is derived from the employment counts of all NAICS 6211, 6212, 6213, 621494, and 622 businesses in the Business Register |
| Proximity to childcare | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a child care facility within a walking distance of 1.5 km. This measure is derived from the presence of all NAICS 624410 businesses in the Business Register |
| Proximity to primary education | Measures the proximity to primary education measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a primary school within a walking distance of 1.5 km. Primary schools are classified as education facilities with an International Standard Classification of education (ISCED) level of 1. The data source is a conglomeration of the Open Database of Education Facilities and other sources of education facilities |
| Proximity to secondary education | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a secondary school within a walking distance of 1.5 km. The data source is a conglomeration of the Open Database of Education Facilities and other sources of education facilities where secondary schools are classified as ISCED2 and/or ISCED3. |
| Proximity to public transit | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any source of public transportation within a 1 km walking distance. This measure is derived from the number of all trips between 7:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. from a conglomeration of General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data sources |
| Proximity to neighbourhood parks | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a neighboUrhood park within a 1 km walking distance. This measure is derived from the presence of all parks from a conglomeration of authoritative open data sources and OpenStreetMap |
| Proximity to amenity dense neighbourhoods | An aggregate measure was created to indicate neighbourhoods that have access to basic needs for a family with minors. A dissemination block with access to a grocery store, pharmacy, health care facility, child care facility, primary school, library, public transit stop, and source of employment is referred to as an amenity dense neighbourhood. A high amenity density neighbourhood is defined as an amenity dense neighbourhood that has proximity measure values in the top third of the distribution for each of the eight proximity measures |
| Proximity to libraries | Measures the closeness of a dissemination block to any dissemination block with a library within a 1.5 km walking distance. This measure is derived from the presence of all libraries from a conglomeration of open and publicly available data sources |
The measures are released as a normalized index value of 0 to 1, where 0 indicates the lowest proximity and 1 indicates the highest proximity to public amenities. Each measure hones in on the dissemination block (DB), an area surrounded on all sides by roads or boundaries. The dissemination block is considered the smallest geographic area for which population and housing counts are disseminated and provides the study with as much geographic resolution as possible. The values of 1 and 0 are normalized at the federal level in order to indicate as much detail as possible, allowing for more intricate analyses to be conducted on more rural regions of Canada.
The current Proximity Measures Database map of Greater Vancouver. As per the index legend, the areas coloured in shades of red and orange (e.g: North Delta, Maple Ridge) have lower levels of walkable infrastructure compared to the areas coloured in various shades of green (e.g: Vancouver, some parts of Burnaby).
The Metro Vancouver Walkability Index (VWI) was developed at the University of British Columbia and utilizes data from the British Columbia Assessment Authority, more specific street network data from CanMap, and data from the aforementioned Statistics Canada Proximity Measures Database. The index uses Geographic Information System (GIS) software to encompass the varying data that specializes in federal measurement, neighbourhood densities, and intersection and traffic densities. The VWI not only measures walkability in Metro Vancouver but also aims to quantify physical urban environment features present across neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver. Walkability values can differ from -7.5 describing the least walkable locations to 12.0 for the most walkable locations, differing from the PMD’s binary value assessment and providing more specificity.
