How walkable is Vaughan?
By Oscar Higson-Spence. Updated
Vaughan has a walkability score of 47 out of 100 across the 5 km around its centre, which makes it car-dependent: most errands require a car. It is the least walkable of the 14 cities ranked in Canada.
What's within walking distance of the centre
567 shops, restaurants, parks and other everyday places are mapped within a 30 minute walk of central Vaughan. The nearest grocery is about 12 minutes away on foot. It earns full or nearly full points for shopping and banks. It is weakest for books & libraries.
Groceries
- Coles, 25 min
Restaurants & bars
- Pür & Simple, 9 min
- The Mills TapHouse + Grill, 9 min
Shopping
- Wicks and Wires Vape Shoppe, 7 min
- The Wee Smoke Shop Vaughan, 7 min
Coffee
- Timothy's World Coffee, 12 min
- Faema Caffe, 12 min
Banks
- HSBC Bank, 9 min
- TD Canada Trust Branch and ATM, 22 min
Parks
- Sweet River Trail Park, 12 min
- Julliard Park, 16 min
Schools
- Julliard Public School, 16 min
- Saratoga Private School, 25 min
Books & libraries
Culture & entertainment
- Nascar Speedpark, 14 min
- Reptilia, 22 min
Further than usual
- The nearest restaurant is 9 minutes from the centre on foot, against 1 minute for the median city ranked.
- The nearest school is 16 minutes from the centre on foot, against 4 minutes for the median city ranked.
- No library or bookshop is mapped within a 30 minute walk of the centre, where the median city ranked has one 6 minutes away.
Measured from the centre at 43.8283, -79.5294, the point near Vaughan's middle with the most places in walking range. Walking times assume 80 m per minute along an estimated street route.
Street layout
Within 800 m of the centre there are about 27 street intersections per km², and blocks average 121 m long. Sparser streets or longer blocks reduce the score by 5%, since they make walks longer than the straight-line distance suggests.
How far walkability reaches
Vaughan's score of 47 is the average across the 5 km around its centre, the point with the most everyday places within a walk. Walkability averages 57 within 1 km of the centre, 56 from 1 to 3 km out and 40 from 3 to 5 km out. 16 of the 91 points within 5 km fall on water or on land without streets, such as hillsides, forest or farmland, and are left out, so the score describes only the built-up part. 15% of the sampled area scores 70 or more, where most errands can be done on foot.
- 90+
- 70–89
- 50–69
- 25–49
- 0–24
Each hexagon is the score at a point, 1 km from its neighbours, across the 5 km around central Vaughan. Rings mark 1, 3 and 5 km from the centre. Gaps are water or land without streets.
| Area | Score | Scoring 70+ |
|---|---|---|
| Centre | 64 | 0% |
| Within 1 km | 57 | 17% |
| 1 to 3 km out | 56 | 26% |
| 3 to 5 km out | 40 | 9% |
Neighbourhoods of Vaughan by walkability
Each neighbourhood is scored across the area around its centre, so the score describes that part of Vaughan rather than the city as a whole.
| # | Neighbourhood | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vaughan Metropolitan Centre | 46 |
| 2 | Concord | 42 |
Nearby cities
| City | Distance | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Toronto, Canada | 17 km | 82 |
| Mississauga, Canada | 31 km | 55 |
| Hamilton, Ontario, Canada | 71 km | 64 |
| London, Ontario, Canada | 169 km | 54 |
| Cleveland, United States | 316 km | 62 |
Questions about walking in Vaughan
Is Vaughan a walkable city?
Not very. Vaughan has a walkability score of 47 out of 100 across the 5 km around its centre, which makes it car-dependent: most errands require a car. Its centre scores 64. The score covers about 80 km² around the busiest point rather than the whole city, and suburbs further out are usually less walkable, so check a specific address on the map. It ranks 14th of 14 cities in Canada and joint 627th of 690 worldwide on How Walkable.
What is the most walkable city in Canada?
Vancouver is the most walkable of the 14 cities ranked in Canada, with a score of 83. Vaughan ranks 14th with 47.
How does Vaughan compare with nearby cities?
Vaughan is less walkable than its nearest ranked neighbours: it scores 47, against Toronto (82, 17 km away), Mississauga (55, 31 km away) and Hamilton, Ontario (64, 71 km away).
Which part of Vaughan is most walkable?
Vaughan's most walkable area is its centre, the point near the middle of the city with the most places in walking range, which scores 64. Walkability averages 57 within 1 km of it. Beyond 2.5 km, it holds up best to the south (averaging 54) and falls most to the south-east (38).
Why is Vaughan's score different from its Walk Score?
Walk Score's city scores average every neighbourhood within the city limits, weighted by where people live, so they count outer suburbs that the 5 km around Vaughan's centre leaves out, and they are usually lower. Address by address the two agree closely: across 46 addresses in the United States and Canada, How Walkable's scores were 5.9 points from Walk Score's on average, as the accuracy study at howwalkable.com/accuracy shows.
How is Vaughan's walkability score calculated?
For Vaughan it is the average of 75 points spaced 1 km apart within 5 km of its busiest point, leaving out water and land without streets; 11 of them score 70 or more. Each point counts groceries, restaurants, shops, cafés, banks, parks, schools, libraries and cultural venues within a 30 minute walk, gives nearer places more weight, and loses up to 20% where streets are sparse or blocks are long, using open map data from Overture Maps (release 2026-09-23.1) and OpenStreetMap. It measures what is within a walk, not what the walk is like: pavements, traffic, safety, hills and heat are not part of the score.
This page is generated from open map data with a published walkability method, explained in the methodology. Places from Overture Maps release 2026-09-23.1. City position and population from GeoNames.
Ask about walking anywhere in ChatGPT with the How Walkable app, for example "How walkable is Vaughan?"