Most walkable cities in North America, measured — 2026
The cities where you can reach the most on foot. For a typical residential cell in each metro, we count the points of interest reachable on a 15-minute walk along the real street network — then rank by the average across the metro.
Leaders this year: Washington DC, New York City, Toronto.
| # | Metro | POIs in a 15-min walk |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 62 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (48% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 2 | 46 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (34% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 3 | TorontoCA | 35 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (40% of cells reach 20+) |
| 4 | 28 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (39% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 5 | Milwaukee | 25 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (38% of cells reach 20+) |
| 6 | MontrealCA | 20 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (25% of cells reach 20+) |
| 7 | 20 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (20% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 8 | 18 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (32% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 9 | Cleveland | 17 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (33% of cells reach 20+) |
| 10 | 17 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (20% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 11 | 17 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (17% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 12 | 15 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (18% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 13 | OttawaCA | 15 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (19% of cells reach 20+) |
| 14 | 14 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (21% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 15 | 14 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (19% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 16 | Columbus | 13 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (21% of cells reach 20+) |
| 17 | 13 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (23% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 18 | Kansas City | 12 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (20% of cells reach 20+) |
| 19 | 12 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (15% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 20 | Cincinnati | 12 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (16% of cells reach 20+) |
| 21 | 10 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (16% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 22 | Providence | 10 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (16% of cells reach 20+) |
| 23 | 10 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (15% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 24 | Richmond | 10 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (12% of cells reach 20+) |
| 25 | Oklahoma City | 9 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (13% of cells reach 20+) |
| 26 | 9 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (16% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 27 | CalgaryCA | 8 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (15% of cells reach 20+) |
| 28 | Sacramento | 8 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (13% of cells reach 20+) |
| 29 | 8 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (11% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 30 | Louisville | 8 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (12% of cells reach 20+) |
| 31 | 8 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (12% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 32 | 7 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (11% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 33 | Riverside | 7 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (10% of cells reach 20+) |
| 34 | Raleigh | 7 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (11% of cells reach 20+) |
| 35 | 7 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (10% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 36 | Virginia Beach | 6 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (10% of cells reach 20+) |
| 37 | 6 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (10% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 38 | Indianapolis | 6 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (8% of cells reach 20+) |
| 39 | 5 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (8% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 40 | 5 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (6% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 41 | Nashville | 5 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (6% of cells reach 20+) |
| 42 | 5 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (5% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 43 | 4 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (6% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 44 | 4 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (6% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 45 | Jacksonville | 4 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (7% of cells reach 20+) |
| 46 | 4 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (6% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 47 | 4 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (6% of cells reach 20+) | |
| 48 | Memphis | 3 POIs reachable on a 15-min walk from a typical cell (3% of cells reach 20+) |
Ranked by total destinations reachable. Linked metros open their measured commute-cost page.
How this is measured
This is a CommutingCost-measured accessibility ranking (cumulative-opportunity): for a stratified sample of grid cells in each metro we run real routing on the live hexmap engine and count the destinations actually reachable within the time budget. Measured with our proprietary algorithm across 497,214 POIs and 31 metro networks — not survey data, and distinct from amenity-density scores like Walk Score.
Cumulative-opportunity accessibility on the live hexmap engine's own OSM pedestrian graph (output/networks/<metro>/walk). For a stratified sample of grid cells we run a bounded shortest-path search with our proprietary algorithm (cutoff = 15 min x 1.33 m/s = 1197 network metres, the engine's WALK_MPS), gather the network distance to every POI cell (snap legs folded in exactly as modes._graph_mode does), and count reachable POIs (497,214-POI OSM dataset). Score = mean reachable POIs across sampled cells.
Frequently asked
Washington DC is the most walkable metro in our measurement: a typical residential cell can reach about 62 points of interest on a 15-minute network walk, and 48% of its cells reach 20 or more. New York City, Toronto and Chicago follow.
Washington DC ranks first among US metros for walkability, with roughly 62 POIs reachable on a 15-minute walk from a typical cell. New York City and Chicago are the next most walkable US metros.
We run the live hexmap engine's pedestrian routing on each metro's own OpenStreetMap walking graph. For a stratified sample of grid cells we do a bounded shortest-path search out to a 15-minute walk (about 1,197 network metres at the engine's 1.33 m/s) and count reachable POIs from a 497,214-POI dataset. The score is the mean number of reachable POIs across sampled cells. It is a cumulative-opportunity accessibility measure — not amenity density like Walk Score.
No. Walk Score weights how many amenities sit near an address. Our ranking measures how many real destinations you can actually walk to within 15 minutes along the street network, computed identically for every metro with the same proprietary algorithm and the same POI dataset, so cities compare apples-to-apples.