How HillSmart Walk & Ride Ratings work
Most walk scores ignore the hills. In the Okanagan the hill is often the main thing: a five-minute walk down to the beach can be a fifteen-minute climb home. HillSmart ratings follow real paths and roads, count the climb in both directions, and show each trip for three ways of getting around.
Example only. Each rating is out of 100; the higher the number, the more of daily life is an easy trip away.
What HillSmart measures
For every home, HillSmart finds the quickest-to-reach place of each kind and works out the real trip there and back:
| In the valley | At SilverStar and Big White |
|---|---|
| Grocery store, coffee, elementary school, park or playground, beach or lake access, downtown, the rail trail, the hospital and golf | Village centre, nearest lift, Nordic trails, and coffee and groceries where they are on the map |
Each trip shows minutes there, minutes home, the distance, and how much climbing there is, for example: 9 min there, 14 min home · 85 m uphill coming home. Places more than 12 km away in a straight line aren’t timed and earn no points.
How the hills are counted
Every route is split into short pieces and each piece gets its slope from public elevation data. Speed changes with the slope:
- Strolling: about 5 km/h on the flat, using Tobler’s hiking formula, a long-standing standard for walking speed on hills. Steep climbs slow you down; steep descents slow you a little too.
- Pedal Bike: a relaxed rider on a regular bike (about 110 watts, about 18 km/h on the flat, up to about 26 km/h downhill). On very steep hills where riding would be slower, HillSmart assumes you walk the bike at about 4 km/h.
- E-bike: a typical pedal-assist e-bike (250-watt motor plus the rider), cruising at about 24 km/h on the flat and climbing hills far faster than a regular bike.
Bike trips add one minute to lock and unlock. Bikes stay off sidewalks and stairs and follow one-way streets; walkers can use footpaths, trails and stairs.
How the rating is worked out
Each place earns full marks when the average of the trip there and the trip home is 5 minutes or less, and nothing at 35 minutes (walking) or 30 minutes (biking), sliding evenly in between. Places are weighted by how often people go. In the valley: groceries count most, then parks, then coffee, school, the beach and downtown, then the rail trail, then the hospital and golf. At the ski resorts: the village centre and the nearest lift count most, then Nordic trails, then coffee and groceries. The rating is the weighted total out of 100. Ratings are not ranked against other homes, so you can compare homes in the same area directly.
The school walk check
On the Strolling tab, the school trip also shows how much of the walk is on footpaths, sidewalks or quiet residential streets, and the main-road crossings shown on the map (highways, arterial and collector roads), with whether the map shows a traffic signal or a marked crosswalk there. HillSmart doesn’t label any route safe or unsafe. Parents know their children best; this gives you the facts to decide. The school shown is the nearest elementary on the map, which may not be the catchment school: check with your school district (for Vernon, Coldstream and Lumby, the SD22 School Locator).
Tree shade
Okanagan summer sun is strong. Each trip shows roughly how much of the route has tree cover alongside it, from the European Space Agency’s WorldCover satellite map (10 m detail).
Where the data comes from
- Paths, roads, crossings and places: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
- Elevation: AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen), which include Canadian Digital Elevation Model data. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
- Tree cover: © ESA WorldCover project 2021 / Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by ESA WorldCover consortium (CC BY 4.0).
Ratings are worked out ahead of time, and new listings are added in batches. Map data has gaps: a missing footpath or a new store can change a result. If you spot one, text 236-599-5898.
HillSmart Walk & Ride Ratings are Sean Phillips’s own estimates. They are not part of any MLS® listing and are not a guarantee of travel times or route conditions. Sean Phillips, REALTOR®, Coldwell Banker Executives Realty, 2907 32 St, Unit 101, Vernon, BC. Call or text 236-599-5898.