Today we’re announcing our 2011 ranking of America’s Most Walkable Cities and Neighborhoods! Read the official press release.

View the full list and vote on what you think are the most walkable cities

New York vs. San Francisco

New York eked out a lead over San Francisco, which was the most walkable city in our 2008 rankings but, before you get too cocky New York, you’re only ahead by .4 points.

This is such a close race that we’ve built a user voting system so you can tell us which city you think is most walkable!

Cast your vote now by clicking “Like.”

And remember, we use the official city borders from the census.  So when you rate the walkability of NYC, you have to include Staten Island!

Explore the walkability of 2,500 cities

We also calculated the Walk Score of 2,500 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods in the United States.  Our new map view lets you explore cities by Walk Score, population, and region.

Walk Score distribution graphs for neighborhoods in Atlanta, GA

• The 2011 rankings use the latest 2010 population data from the U.S. census and neighborhood boundaries from Zillow
• Read a detailed description of the methodology used in our rankings
• Learn about using Walk Score data for research and planning

We’re excited to announce that now over 10,000 real estate websites are now using Walk Score Professional. This represents a 250% increase over the past year. Read the official press release.

Now Serving 4 Million Scores Daily

Walk Score Professional real estate marketing tools include:

• The Walk Score Neighborhood Map: An interactive map widget that includes nearby amenities, commute times, and public transit.
• The Walk Score Neighborhood Flyer: A low-cost way to showcase the location of a property, the Neighborhood Flyer is easy to customize, share online and print for clients.
• Walk Score APIs: Enable software developers to integrate Walk Score and public transit data into their web and mobile applications.

“Walk Score is helping us to better meet REALTOR® and consumer demand for walkable places to live,” said Russ Bergeron, CEO of MRED, the nation’s largest MLS.  “Serving the Chicagoland area we know how important walkability is to the people who live here – whether they are in downtown Chicago, or in a small town like Naperville. When given the choice, most people prefer to be within walking distance of public transportation, restaurants, shops, and other local businesses.  And with gas prices at current levels, walkable neighborhoods and shorter commutes have become even more important.”

Thanks from the Walk Score team to all of our partners who helped us hit this milestone!

We’re excited to announce that Walk Score has received Part 2 of a grant from Active Living Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

We will be working with Dr. Lawrence Frank and Urban Design 4 Health to continue to align Walk Score with the latest research on urban design, walkability, and health. Specifically, we will enhance Walk Score to include more pedestrian friendliness metrics and to increase the correlation between Walk Score and on-the-ground walking behavior.

Why does this matter? One of our goals is to promote research on walkable neighborhoods by providing a cost-effective national walkability metric.  We hope that by increasing the accuracy of Walk Score, we can make our data more useful to researchers.

In Phase 1 of our grant, we developed Street Smart Walk Score and Walk Score was found by Urban Design 4 Health ”to be strongly and significantly correlated with an already validated measure of walkability.”

Who uses Walk Score data? Walk Score data is used by leading researchers and city planning departments including CEOs for Cities and the Washington DC Office of Planning.

We’re the first to admit that Walk Score isn’t perfect—so we look forward to adding more “street smarts” to Walk Score with this grant!

Phoenix, Arizona is using Walk Score data to analyze the performance of existing light rail stations and to model the performance of proposed stations. The Phoenix planning department combined Walk Score, housing, and employment data to measure transit oriented development (TOD).

“Walk Score data helps us understand which corridors and station locations perform best from a land use perspective—which is often a key missing input in transportation planning where the primary focus is on ‘node’ (stations) rather than ‘place’ considerations,” said Curt Upton, the Light Rail Planning Coordinator for The City of Phoenix Planning and Development Services Department.

Walk Score of Existing and Proposed Light Rail Stations

To evaluate station performance, Phoenix used 60,723 data points in shapefile format that included:

• Street Smart Walk Score
• Average block length
• Intersection density

Housing, employment, and Walk Score data used to measure TOD

Phoenix plans to use Walk Score data in a similar fashion to evaluate the performance of their canal corridors.  Did you know Phoenix has 181 miles of canals (and Venice, Italy has 125 miles of canals)?  Here’s a great video on the canals of Phoenix.

Read the full case study: Analyzing Light Rail Station Area Performance in Phoenix.

Over three quarters of home shoppers rate being within a 30 minute commute to work as important (source NAR).

Now it’s even easier to show commute times on your real estate listings with the Walk Score Amenity Map.

We’ve made the commute search box easier to find on our Amenity Map:

And you can set the default view of the Amenity Map to commute:

My bike commute to Walk Score HQ. It keeps me sane!

Hot off the virtual press! Today is the official launch of our newest product, the Walk Score Neighborhood Flyer.

Designed to offer real estate professionals a low-cost way to showcase the location of a property, the Neighborhood Flyer is easy to customize, share online, and print for open houses. Ideal for:

• Homes
• Apartments
• Hotels
• Events

For just five dollars per property, you can customize an online flyer that can be downloaded as a print-quality PDF (print as many copies as you want) and get a web link that you can share with clients or post online.

The Neighborhood Flyer is also available as a co-branded service for brokerage firms and we’re pleased to announce a partnership with John L. Scott Real Estate to offer the Walk Score Neighborhood Flyer to their agents. (See official press release.)

Design options allow you to personalize the flyer and choose the amenity categories that showcase what is great about a property’s neighborhood. For example, a broker who is listing a loft in an urban center may want to list restaurants and shopping while a listing in a more bucolic neighborhood might feature schools and parks.

“No matter where the home is, brokers now have a way to showcase what’s great about the neighborhood around it.” says J. Lennox Scott, John L. Scott Chairman and CEO.

Let us know what you think.

Did you know that the Walk Score Amenity Map now includes Bing Bird’s Eye View, Google Street View, and our walkability heatmaps?

Personally, I’ve always loved Street View and Bird’s Eye view—but I find it tedious to navigate around a neighborhood with them.  With Walk Score, you can just click on a category like “Coffee” and then click on each coffee shop to see it in Street View or Bird’s Eye view.  It’s an easy way to tour the neighborhood!

Go to our Amenity Map and then click the Street View button in the top right to see these new views in action.

Street View of Pike Place Market

Bird's Eye View of Pike Place Market

Walk Score Walkability Map

Just two months ago we shared that the Walk Score Professional network had passed 6,000 sites and we are thrilled to say that Walk Score Professional is now being used by over 8,000 sites. Wow! And thank you!

Why is Walk Score growing so fast? A recent study conducted by the National Association of Realtors indicated that commute times (we launched custom Commute Reports in February) and places to walk are two of the top three community characteristics for home shoppers. As NAR president Ron Phipps said, “many home buyers want walkable, transit-accessible communities.” Walkability matters!

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what some Walk Score Professional sites have to say:

“For my buyers, walkability is almost equal to price as the most important criterion.” Stephanie Somers, Realtor at RE/MAX Access

“Walk Score increases engagement on our site.” Michael D’Alba, Director of Business Development, ForRent.com

“We implemented Walk Score in hours. It was significantly cheaper than building something similar ourselves.” Mark Silva, Development Lead, ZipRealty.com

“Walk Score helps us deliver more qualified leads for landlords.” Mark Moran, VP of Marketing, MyNewPlace.com

Add Walk Score Professional to your site today!

We just released a major overhaul to the Walk Score Amenity Map that includes:

• Handsome new user interface
• Lists and maps of amenities by category
• iPad/tablet friendly controls
• Small, med, large, and super-sizes
• Commute reports

Click an image below to try the live version!

The New Amenity Map

Commute Reports

The new commute reports show commute time and distance for driving, public transit, walking, and biking from a home or apartment listing to a work address.

Commute Report on the Amenity Map

Before and After

Here’s a screenshot of the old Amenity Map so you can compare old vs. new:

The Previous Amenity Map

Join over 6,000 sites that use the Walk Score Amenity Map today!

Walk Score has passed two major milestones: over 1 billion scores served and over 6,000 websites now use Walk Score Services.

What does this look like? Check out this real time map of where people are looking up scores:

Real Time Map of Scores Being Served

I’m lovin’ it! (Picturing a giant Walk Score logo followed by the words “Billions and billions served.”)

A few months ago we announced that we had passed 5,000 sites using the Walk Score Amenity Map and APIs and that number has now grown to over 6,000 including new comers ForRent.com, Bank of America, and AARP Travel Center Powered by Expedia.

Here’s why Brock MacLean, For Rent Media’s Senior Vice President of National Sales and Development, says they added Walk Score to their site: “With the addition of Walk Score, we are giving potential renters more valuable information about the properties they are viewing, letting them assess communities based on their lifestyle. This is one additional piece of information that will be helpful during the selection process and increase renter engagement on the site.”

Over the past few months we’ve also added a Mobile Amenity Map, walkability maps and neighborhood rankings for 2,500 U.S. cities, a preview our new “Street Smart” Walk Score, and a number of other new features. And, more’s coming including exciting design and feature enhancements to the Walk Score Professional Amenity Map.

Interested in joining our team? We’re hiring!