The rising cost of gasoline is starting to hit home for even those people driving hybrids. Everybody’s starting to explore options like walking or biking, especially if they want to cut down on carbon emissions. But it can be hard to figure out just what stores, restaurants and other venues are within walking distance of your home, especially if you don’t live smack-dab in the middle of a big city. I spent a few months living in what amounted to the center of a metropolis once, and that really spoiled me for walking in the suburbs: the grocery market was no longer two buildings over and there wasn’t a library around the corner.

WalkScore is working on making it easier to find a walkable neighborhood. The site uses Google Maps to measure the walking distance to a variety of offerings and assign a score to your address. My address scores a 57, for instance. A 57 isn’t great — the most walkable neighborhoods score 90 to 100 — but it’s not too bad. WalkScore was even able to tell me the locations of the grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, movie theaters, schools, parks, libraries, bookstores, fitness centers, drug stores, hardware stores and clothing and music stores in my area. While the method that WalkScore uses to compute their scores is top secret and patent-pending, it looks like their system deems anything under two miles away from your address as walkable.

There are some problems with WalkScore at the moment — and to the company’s credit, they identify the problems on their website and have promised to work on them. The score assigned to a given address doesn’t take into account how easy it is to be a pedestrian in a neighborhood: Are there steep hills? Busy streets? Sidewalks?

However, WalkScore is in the middle of rolling out a great tool for househunters. They’re slowly putting together scores for neighborhoods as a whole. They’ve already posted information on 77 neighborhoods in Seattle and WalkScore has started work on other neighborhoods around the U.S. As you are narrowing down neighborhoods in a search for a new house, it’s worth talking a look at the WalkScore and checking the amenities outside of the house. If you’re in the process of selling a house or renting an apartment, knowing what’s in the area can also come in handy for convincing prospective buyers or renters.

Even if you aren’t househunting, however, knowing your home’s WalkScore is still useful. As I looked at mine, I found several different stores within walking distance that I didn’t even know existed. And, if I’m going to be buying something, I might as well save gas money. I’ve also been inspired to just walk around the neighborhood a little more than I have in the past. It’s free entertainment, as well exercise without the expense of a gym membership. By walking, I manage to save money in all sorts of different ways.

Photo