San Francisco most walkable U.S. city, website says

A pedestrian crosses Lombard Street, overlooking Coit Tower and the North Beach neighborhood, in San Francisco, April 26, 2007.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - San Francisco, New York and Boston are the United States' most walkable cities, according to new rankings from a website 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 ultimate goal is to see the site's scores included in property listings, said Mike Mathieu, founder of the company that created the site's software.

"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?'" Mathieu said.

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."

(Reporting by Helen Chernikoff)