PROVO — The quick clip of Timothy Ross’s boots on the pavement echoes off the nearby brick walls. Ross is heading from his job at the new downtown Provo night club The Madison to Smith’s grocery store, about four blocks away.

“I walk everywhere,” Ross says without slowing down. “It works for me.”

Ross doesn’t own a car, and during his quick Friday night trip to the grocery store said that he’s made a conscious effort to make his life walkable.

“I’ve set up my whole living situation so I can walk,” he says just before heading into the store.

Ross’s situation may not be typical in the autocentric West, but he said he suspects there are many people in Provo who primarily use their feet to get around. According to a new set of rankings, Ross and those like him may be living in the best possible place in Utah Valley.

Walk Score, an organization that rates cities based on walkability, recently released its 2011 city and neighborhood rankings. According to those rankings, Provo is the most walkable city in Utah County and the sixth most walkable city in the state. Orem ranks as the eighth most walkable city in the state and is the only other Utah Valley municipality to crack the top 10. Both Provo and Orem scored slightly better than the national average.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Saratoga Springs came in dead last, meaning it is the least walkable city in the entire state. Eagle Mountain was designated the second least walkable city in Utah. Lehi and Springville also scored poorly, coming in as the fifth and ninth least walkable cities in Utah respectively. Only the 44 largest cities in Utah were ranked by Walk Score.

Walk Score ranks communities and neighborhoods based on how easy it is to do errands and move around on foot. Among the elements that earn an area a strong score, Walk Score cites the presence of a central area in the community, enough people for flourishing commerce, housing located near businesses, parks and public spaces and proximity to schools. Walk Score also values “complete streets,” or those designed for cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles.

Provo Mayor John Curtis wasn’t surprised by his city’s relatively strong showing, saying the city recently has worked on a number of projects that should make Provo more walkable. Curtis cited recent zoning changes in downtown that will allow residential dwelling and specifically pointed to the Harmon House — a historic downtown building that will become a mixed use structure — as an example. The city also is trying to slow down traffic in some areas and add bike lanes, as happened recently on 100 South in downtown.

“It’s not necessarily about efficiency in our neighborhoods,” Curtis said. “It’s about slower traffic and a comfortable neighborhood feeling.”

Curtis acknowledged that Provo’s massive streets can pose a challenge for making the city more walkable. But he also lauded past efforts — such as putting in the Provo River Trail — that made the city more walkable and said he hopes to carry on that same kind of vision.

Like Curtis, Orem city transportation engineer Paul Goodrich said cultivating walkable communities is important. Goodrich said Orem’s grid-oriented layout and the close proximity of schools and parks to residents make it walkable. He also said that the city recently has deployed new signals and bike lanes, which have helped it become more walkable. And he added that residents have expressed a desire for more improvements.

“We found out that right now people walk and bike a lot of different places,” Goodrich said. “But they wanted to be able to do that more and do it more extensively.”

Goodrich said that city officials in Orem actually took a one-day field trip to Boulder, Colo., to study ways to make a community more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly.

“There were some of us, myself included, who were afraid to paint bike lanes on some of the streets,” Goodrich said. “Until we went and rode bicycles on their streets and got real life experience.”

Goodrich said he was surprised to discover that streets can actually be safer with more pedestrians. He added that Orem is looking at plans to build a lake shore trail, extend other trails and put in pedestrian tunnels near Utah Valley University. The goal, he said, is to give people the chance to walk to their destinations.

“It’s just really critical when you live in an area like this to be able to walk where you want to go,” Goodrich added.

The people behind Walk Score evidently agree. The organization’s website states that residents of a walkable neighborhood weigh six to 10 pounds less than those from sprawling neighborhoods, on average. They are also wealthier, with one point of a Walk Score being worth up to $3,000 in property values. The average score across the nation was 43 points.

To put that into perspective, Provo scored 49 points, Orem scored 48 points, Saratoga Springs scored 9 points, Eagle Mountain scored 16 points and Lehi scored 21 points. Walk Score ranked Hoboken, N.J., as the most walkable city in the nation, with a score of 92.2. Badger, Ark., was ranked the least walkable, with a score of 6.2.

Officials from Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain and Lehi did not return phone calls to the Daily Herald.

Richard Florida, a senior editor at The Atlantic magazine, wrote on Oct. 13 that the many benefits of walkability are causing a shift in cities throughout the United States. Florida’s point is that suburban areas increasingly have bustling downtowns while cities are becoming more livable. It’s a shift municipalities would be wise to pursue, he argues.

“Walkability is a magnet that attracts and retains highly educated and skilled people and the innovative businesses that employ them,” Florida writes. “Much more than a faddish amenity, walkability is an ecological imperative, and to an increasing extent, as fuel and time costs continue to climb, a financial one as well.”