This video sums up why we’re so passionate about walkable neighborhoods.

Fun fact for Earth Day: according to the U.S. Census, 97 million Americans drive to work every day alone.  Only 6 million take public transit.  We’d like to introduce you to two people who are going to help us change that.

We’re thrilled to announce that Seleta Reynolds and Bronwen Thornton are joining the Walk Score Advisory Board.

Seleta is a consultant for Fehr & Peers, President of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals, and serves on the Transportation Research Board Pedestrian Committee.

Seleta is an expert walkability practitioner and we’re excited to have her help as we work to make Walk Score more accurate.

Bronwen is Development Director for Walk21, the leading international conference on walkability. Bronwen has worked on transportation policy related to walking and biking in Britain, Australia, and Canada.

We’re excited about the international perspective Brownwen brings to Walk Score as we expand our coverage to more countries.

Welcome Seleta and Bronwen!

I’m reading the GOOD Magazine Transportation issue and there’s so much important stuff in it I just can’t tweet all of it.  This issue is a great primer in transportation innovation—go forth and read!

In no particular order…

Great Joseph Sussman Interview: He’s an MIT prof and advisor to DoT.  Love this quote, “Charge cars on a per mile basis, depending on what road you were traveling, at what time of day, in what kind of car.”  He also explains why we’re not investing enough in high-speed rail.

Zach Dundas pines after the coolest bike in the world:

Innovative Buses in Bogotá:

And of course the Walk Score article:

I wish I could say that the Boston Globe interviewed me for this article and that I was SO on message that they covered all my talking points.   But I tend to ramble—so maybe this article is so good precisely because I wasn’t interviewed?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2009/04/05/walk_this_way/

“Walkability has become a buzzword in real estate, as environmentalists and “green” planners advocate compact residential neighborhoods near businesses and public transportation. And some realtors say in this difficult market, houses with high walkability scores are easier to sell: Owners can save money by walking to mass transit, and by using less gas when running errands.”

Barack Obama is creating our country’s first Office of Urban Policy to revitalize our cities.  Front Seat (makers of Walk Score) just launched ObamaUrbanPolicy.org, a site that lets you submit and vote on the top priorities for this new office.

Take a look at the top priorities and cast your vote!

More on Front Seat: We build civic software—software that makes it easier to participate in your government or community.  This week we also launched ObamaCTO and you can check out our full list of projects here.

Walkability isn’t an urban phenomenon, it’s an everywhere phenomenon.  Walk Score advisor Dan Burden created a great list of walkable small towns.  We decided to build on Dan’s list by finding 10 small towns with locations that have perfect 100 Walk Scores.

Aspen, CO | Key West, FL | Healdsburg, CA | Missoula, MT | Flagstaff, AZ | Brunswick, ME | Lawrence, KS | Juneau, AK | Middlebury, VT | Moscow, ID

This is just a start and we’re hoping to build a comprehensive list in the future—and to create walkability maps for small towns that are similar to the maps we made for the 40 largest U.S. cities.

Tip: want to see some hot pedestrian-centric design? Look at Lawrence, KS or Healdsburg, CA and then click the “Go to street level view” link above the map.

Today we’re announcing our walkability rankings of 2,508 neighborhoods in the largest 40 U.S. cities. Leave us a question or comment on this blog post—we’d love to hear what you think! You may want to read our detailed methodology before posting comments.

More importantly, we need your help to create more walkable neighborhoods. Please sign this petition to Congress to support walking, biking, and transit in the 2009 Transportation Bill.  The Transportation Bill only comes along once a decade—so now is the moment to change our transportation priorities!

Lee Byron created a gorgeous walkability map of San Francisco using Walk Score data.  Lee made a couple of decisions that we love.  First, he used solid colors rather than gradients for different Walk Score ranges.  This makes it easy to see the edges of walkable areas.  Second, Lee customized the colors of the map for San Francisco’s uniformly high Walk Scores.  In San Francisco, it’s great to be able to easily see the difference between a Walk Score 94 and a Walk Score 98 area.

Lee, you are a walkability hero—not to mention a skilled programmer and designer!

It’s hard to quantify the nuances that make a neighborhood walkable. Are the streets shaded with trees? Are the buildings designed to cater to foot traffic? Are there other people out walking?

We just added Google Street View to Walk Score so you can see for yourself whether a neighborhood looks walkable:

Try visiting the Painted Ladies in San Francisco, Fenway Park in Boston, or maybe Times Square in New York. Click the”Go to street level view” link above the Walk Score map to check it out.

Note: Google Street View is only available in the following areas. Hey Google, why no street view love for Seattle? Was it too rainy to photograph us? Is it because Microsoft is nearby? Seattleites unite for street view!

We’re excited to be named in Planetizen’s annual list of the 10 best planning, design and development websites!

This award is especially cool because it’s nominated by their readers! Thanks to Planetizen and to our users for making Walk Score an instrumental resource for spreading the walkable gospel!