The creators of WalkScore---a tool that calculates an area's walkability, ranking addresses on a scale of 0 to 100---have just released a new app called TransitScore, which calculates how well an area is served by transit lines.

It's a neat little tool---my house, for example, scores a 78, whereas my work address scores a stellar 98---but the most useful elements of the site are the side-by-side comparisons of commute times (presented here in one place, making comparisons easier) and a topographic chart showing cyclists what sort of hills they'll have to confront for a given route. There's also a nifty calculator that tells you how much it actually costs to live in various parts of the city, including both housing and transportation costs, and the percentage of your income you can expect to spend on both.

It's still a little less intuitive than it could be---in calculating my commute to Second Ave., for example, it sent me to New York---but I'm assuming they'll work out the bugs. TransitScore will be available to developers who want to create apps for mobile phones. If someone integrates TransitScore and OneBusAway, I'll never use Google Transit Maps again.