Walkable Neighborhood Grocery

I am investigating walkability in Mountain View. Here I mapped the nearest walkable grocery store to every parcel in the city.

I defined “walkable” as within a half mile. This is a 10-15 minute walk for most people. I defined grocery as any place that sells dairy and fresh produce. So Costco makes the cut, but target does not.

I don’t have a tool to calculate walking distance based on the street network, so this is having some impractical freeway-jumping walks. But for the most part it is accurate.

About 30,000 of the 37,000 addresses – 81% – have a grocery store of one kind or another within a half mile. Not too shabby.

Now I will talk a little bit about the California Market

California Market, on the corner of California and Mariposa, is the only grocery market in Mountain View that is zoned residential. It is an older market that predates car-centred design. It has no on-site parking at all. The market was grandfathered in, if it is lost no new market could be built.

So, if the California Market is lost, how much walkability is lost?

Losing the California Market would cause about 1,800 homes to no longer have a neighborhood grocery. Many current walking trips will become car trips, and traffic will get worse.

Also, we would lose some excellent tamales.