I took a walk today from my house to Green Lake and back to revel in the last day of summer. It was glorious out. Perfect temperature, not too fall cool and not summer hot hot. Only taking one short break to kick out the rocks in my shoes, it took about 90 minutes.
Using a new pedestrian-centric map the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has created that conveniently shows the number of minutes of different street segments, I added up what their estimated time would be for the approximate same route and it came out to 72 minutes.
Not so bad, considering these estimates don’t take into account the steepness of the street or an individual’s physical condition. There is going to be some variation, so the numbers should be taken as rough estimates.
A zoom-in on the Fremont part of the SDOT map
As Seattle residents know — and as visitors quickly pick up — city streets vary in slope from pancake flat to whoo-boy steep. Those streets are colored yellow on the map. We think it’s a little misleading not coloring at least some of Fremont Avenue North in yellow! It may be gradual, but it’s still steep, and I know for a fact it’d take me more than 13 minutes to hoof it from downtown Fremont up Fremont Ave. N. to 46th Street.
The routes on the Seattle Walking Map come from a variety of sources, including The Feet First walking advocacy organization, King County, and SDOT. Routes follow sidewalks, shoulders on quiet streets, and park trails.
This new series of maps divides Seattle into three sections: north, central, and south. Adjoining sections of the map include a limited amount of overlap, should the selected route cross from one section to another. You can print out PDF’s of all three and or the full city map here, or you can fill out a form on that page and have SDOT mail you a copy.