So Arlington Really Is For Walkers

America's great walking towns feature historic neighborhoods (Washington, Boston), corner stores and majestic vistas (San Francisco) and riveting people- watching (New York). So when I heard that the American Podiatric Medical Association was ranking the nation's most walkable cities, I assumed the foot doctors would hoof it to one of those great cities.

The docs chose Arlington. Yes, our Arlington, America's most walkable city.

This called for a long stroll along Wilson Boulevard.

Sure, plenty of folks happily walk around after dinner in Clarendon, a movie in Shirlington or a game of pool in Ballston. But America's most walkable city? Did somebody on the County Board slip something into the foot doctors' slippers?

Not necessary, says the board chairman, Jay Fisette, who led me on a search for evidence of Arlington's supreme walkability.

Fisette lives the model pedestrian life, and I don't mean he's boring. He's a lean, energetic gent who regularly walks Arlington's neighborhoods.

Arlington is a national leader in figuring out how to build densely around transit stations while maintaining neighborhoods of one-family houses just off the main drags. The foot doctors loved that 23 percent of Arlingtonians commute by public transit.

The county pays its workers a bonus of $25 a month if they walk to work. There's even a county office on walking, which this year will hand out thousands of pedometers to encourage exercise on foot.

Fisette showed me how simple, inexpensive design changes can give us a fighting chance against the hegemony of the automobile. In Clarendon, Arlington told developers that new buildings had to be pedestrian-friendly. Look at newer intersections along Wilson and you'll see sidewalks that bulge out into the street at corners, slowing car traffic while easing the fear factor for those on foot.

By building up around Metro, Arlington has boosted the portion of people who arrive at Ballston Station on foot to 70 percent. To encourage biking, the county has added 20 miles of bike lanes and requires bike racks and showers at new office buildings.

This is no Manhattan--it's not even Georgetown or Capitol Hill. But you can walk from many Arlington neighborhoods to shopping, work and entertainment. Incentives promote retail on the ground floor of new apartment buildings, and the county has managed to maintain locally owned shops as a bulwark against encroaching national chain stores.

Still, Arlington? It's not even a city, technically. But Fisette notes that Arlington now has more commercial space than Denver and that more people work in the county than live in it.