San Francisco most walkable city

With gas at $4 a gallon, there's never been a better time to live in a walkable neighborhood.

Walkscore.com ranks 2,508 neighborhoods in the largest 40 U.S. cities to help you find a walkable place to live.

San Francisco, New York and Boston are the United States' most walkable cities, according to new rankings from Walk Score that evaluates how easy it is to live in the nation's cities and neighborhoods without a car.

Walkscore.com, which uses an algorithm to identify those neighborhoods boasting the most amenities per person, published its ranking on Thursday and deemed San Francisco the most walkable city, with a "Walk Score" of 86 out of 100.

The top 17 neighborhoods in San Francisco are Walkers' Paradises. 90% of San Francisco residents have a Walk Score of 70 or above. 99% have a Walk Score of at least 50—and 1% live in Car-Dependent neighborhoods.

The site helps you find a walkable place to live by calculating a Walk Score for any address.

"What we see is someone calling up a broker and saying 'I want three bedrooms, two baths, a walkability score of 85, what've you got?”said Mike Mathieu, founder of the company.

Type an address, and the site generates a map showing the nearby grocery stores, cafes, movie theaters, schools and parks.

New York received a score of 83, Boston a score of 79.

Scores greater than 70 indicate neighborhoods where it's possible to get by without owning a car, while scores greater than 90 qualify communities as a "Walker's Paradise."