Web site rates E.V. cities for ease of strolling

If walking is a cause, Matt Lerner is a convert.

"I live in a very walkable neighborhood, and quality of life is just better when you can do some errands on foot," the Seattle software designer said. "Just yesterday, I went to the store with my 2-year-old. I was able to stop off for coffee, and buy a cake on the way home. The pace of living is just better. The air and the exercise make it healthy. It makes neighborhoods better and allows local businesses to flourish."

So Lerner and several like-minded designers created Walk Score, a Web site that could read a street address, rate its neighborhood and itemize its walkable features. "We really did it to promote the idea of walking," he said. "We were surprised by the unexpected benefits." Those unexpected benefits were $4 gas prices that made Walk Score popular with folks rethinking the Shoe Leather Express.

TWO-LEGGED TALLY

Walk Score (www.walkscore.com) asks only for your address in the header bar. Within seconds, a number appears, rating your area from 1 to 100. Your house pops up on a map grid, bristling with icons for coffee shops, drugstores, grocery stores, bars, libraries and other amenities we drain our tanks dry for.

It's a good tool for reducing car trips and minimizing gas consumption. But Lerner says it wasn't intended that way. "All we were trying to do is find walkable neighborhoods." When Lerner and companions from his software company, Front Seat, launched Walk Score last summer, "Gas prices were high then. But it wasn't all people talked about, like it is now."

Walk Score's mathematical formula awards points for the number and proximity of each amenity available within a mile. Neighborhoods are rated from Car-Dependent/Driving Only (0-24) to Walker's Paradise (90-100). Walk Score has also rated the 40 most walkable cities in the United States, with San Francisco, New York, Boston and Chicago taking the top slots. (Here's a surprise: Mesa is ranked 30th.)

The site is popular with homebuyers gauging the convenience of a property; with real estate agents hoping to better describe the neighborhood; and with longtime residents looking to rediscover their communities. "It's rewarding to hear: 'I put in my address, and found a coffee shop I never knew existed,' " he says.

"I WAS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD"

But does walkability apply in the sprawling Southwest, where the sidewalks steam six months of the year?

We asked several East Valley residents to rate their neighborhood and offer their thoughts. "You couldn't pay me enough money to walk to any of the stores or restaurants in my neighborhood," says Lauren Lashenko, whose east Mesa neighborhood rated a 17. "There are no sidewalks, local drivers seem to be in some kind of race ... and the design of these plazas is geared toward cars, not walking."

Tiri Faraone, of Gilbert, agrees that the East Valley's layout works against pedestrians. "I moved here from Chicago six years ago, and houses (back there) are in neighborhoods, surrounded by merchants, which makes it easier to walk to the grocery store, ice cream shop, etc.," she says. "The downside of my community now is that a lot of the stores are off a major street, which is not conducive to let children walk or ride bikes to the store." In south Tempe, Mary Ann Hemmingson found a few bugs. "The site listed one of my neighbors' houses as a coffee shop," she quipped. "So, I'm going to have to talk to my HOA."

Lerner says improvements to Walk Score are on the way. "The biggest response we get is from people who see something missing near their house," he explains. "No one knows a neighborhood better than the people who live there, so now (users) have the ability to add something to the map."

But no amount of Web site change will make our sprawling, mall-centric cities more walkable. As fuel costs rise and mass transit labors to catch up, one wonders if the stucco cul-de-sac is doomed to become a dinosaur. "Neighborhoods may one day contract," Lerner says. "As the millennial (generation) opts for more social, urban-style neighborhoods, the cheaper homes may one day be those places out in the suburbs."

Nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to walk there.