I've mentioned in the past how I really like being able to walk so many places here. However, South Lake Union is surrounded by highways and busy streets that make it discouraging to walk outside the neighborhood. Though there are some good walking areas very nearby, it's often necessary to walk a few blocks around a highway or cross a busy street. We can still walk pretty easily to a lot of things that are relatively nearby, but it's just not the ideal walkable area that I'd like to live in. For an idea of what I'm talking about, look at the map below:


The green are streets that are enjoyable to walk along.
The orange are streets that are busy and not the most fun to walk along
The red are streets that really suck to walk near
The black are roadways that we physically can't cross.

On the bright side, we are a 15 minute walk from the downtown retail district, closer to Capitol Hill and Lake Union, and from our place on the east side of South Lake Union, we can walk to Seattle Center, Lower Queen Anne, Belltown, or Pike Place Market in less that 30 minutes. So, overall we're in a pretty good location for walking, but the neighborhood just needs to be more seamlessly integrated with its surroundings.