How Walkable Is Your Neighborhood?

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Looking for a place to live in an unfamiliar neighborhood is one thing. But knowing what those neighborhoods have to offer -- or what they are lacking -- could make the process much easier.

A Web site called WalkScore (www.walkscore.com) lets people find out just what amenities and services are within walking distance in neighborhoods all around the country.

"WalkScore measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle," according to the Web site.

Founded in July 2007 by Mike Mathieu, the chairman of Front Seat Management in Seattle, WalkScore works with Google Maps and census data. Type in a street address on the site, and within seconds a list and map appear showing the nearest grocery stores, restaurants, gyms, schools and more -- all for free.

The site works for any address within the United States, Canada, and even Britain. It also uses a formula to assign point values to locations within a mile of the given address. These points yield a final score from 1 to 100 for the address's overall "walkability."

An apartment on East 61st Street in Manhattan scored a 98 out of 100 and was labeled a walker's paradise. It is within a quarter mile of eight grocery stores, seven schools, eight gyms and seven coffee shops.

In fact, most of Manhattan's residential areas fall into this category. An apartment on West 80th Street scored a perfect 100.

Predictably, the scores for suburban homes tended to be far lower than those in the city. Houses in Chappaqua, in Westchester County, typically scored between a 5 and 10 on the walkability scale, earning the tag of "car dependant."

Notable reasons for the low scores included a distance of over two miles to the nearest school and grocery store.

For people interested in neighborhoods beyond their own, the site lists what it considers to be the 40 most walkable cities in the United States.

WalkScore also lists what it doesn't include in its searches, and chief among those is the distance to mass transportation.

"We do think mass transportation is important, but data varies widely from city to city," Mr. Mathieu said. "In fact, some cities do not provide any data at all."

The site also does not include, among other things, statistics on crime, topography and weather.

Mr. Mathieu said the site would incorporate transit data whenever a uniform source could be found, and he is also considering altering the formula used to calculate the walking distances.

Because the formula uses an "as the crow flies" method of measuring distance from point to point, as WalkScore puts it, "this means if you live across the lake from a destination we are assuming you'll swim."

This is not such a big deal in a city, which typically have fewer lakes and other water features, but could make a difference to users in the suburbs and elsewhere in the country.