A note on data: the population and area figures that we used were not for city boundaries (e.g., the City of Calgary) or metro areas (e.g., the Calgary CMA). They were another measure that counts all built-up urban and suburban development (but not rural areas) as being part of “the city”. This is usually the best (most consistent) way to compare cities on things like area or density. You can find this data under ”population centre” in Canada (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_population_centres_in_Canada) and ”urban area” in the US (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas).
That 15 Minute city in Canada you mentioned is also being proposed in California for the "Flannery and Associates" and California Forever proposal in Solano County, California which happens to be the outer suburbs of both Sacramento and San Francisco Bay Area. Yes its the one where Billionaires from San Francisco and San Jose bought land near Fairfield, CA and Travis Air Force Base. Nimby here involves security, escalation of income inequality, protecting both San Pablo Bay and the Sacramento Delta at the same time and civil rights concerns.
@@blogdesign7126 Calgary, the city, never had that kind of competition. You can drive east from downtown for an HOUR and still be in the "City of Calgary"..long term industrial expansion plans. There's no other city near Calgary to worry about, just First Nation lands and cattle.
Calgary and Edmonton are the 4th and 5th largest population centres in Canada - but your video description refers to the "5th and 6th metro areas"... could be consistent there too :)
You forgot to mention that part of the reason Calgary and Edmonton are sparse in terms of overall land size, but are very dense when it comes to the neigbourhoods is due to the amount of public green space and parks. For Example, Calgary has Fish Creek Provincial Park which weaves through much of Calgary. The large Green spaces bring down the overall density of the city when compared against the land mass--- but are often overlooked as people just assume we have sprawl.
An urbanist video that isn't all doomerism? In 2024? About Alberta??? Impossible! On a serious note, I really hope more urbanist channels take your optimistic approach to things. The Reddit doomerist/armchair urbanist approach to making urbanist RU-vid videos isn't gonna do much :)
I honestly think any serious attempt at understanding cities needs to cover the good and the bad. Relentless negativity and empty positivity are both boring!
@@OhTheUrbanity one thing I hate is some of the other channels that talk about this stuff that basically end up calling anyone that disagrees with them stupid. Its not productive at all. It just ends up being that those channels only speak to people that already agree with them. Then they get mad when they are called "elitists" by other people.
Yeah honestly I think it's going pretty well as an Albertan! I live in a smaller city and slowly, we're seeing more things being adopted from Calgary and Edmonton as they prove to be effective. No light rail or BRT yet though
@@Cobalt985 I honestly would love to see some of the smaller towns look at adopting some of these ideas. Land is extremely cheap and it wouldnt be hard to start to build out more 50k+ population cities. If someone has the ability to work from home anyways then maybe the best option is to move people into the more rural areas. That whole route between Jasper and Edmonton could be great for something like this. If you can create the density then maybe it makes sense to have trains running that route to get people into Edmonton if they need to go for some reason. You could most likely have townhouse communities where people can own a home for $150k that is big enough for a small family. Especially if you have train connections that can get people to the airport that would mean even people that maybe technically work in another province could live in Alberta. Red Deer to the Rockies is another area that could work if they had high speed rail between Edmonton and Calgary. I dont think the people in the rural communities would have as much of an issue with this as what some people might think. You just need people to make the case for them. Say what you want about the UCP government but I think if you show someone like Smith how this could work she would most likely be a great cheerleader. The case is making Alberta a great place to raise a family where there is a sense of community and show the benefits of having a tight community where people can walk and bike around from a financial point of view. That is the conservative case to be made. Instead of big backyards you have well equipped parks where all the kids can play together and families can spend time together.
@@pin65371 Agreed. Almost every town and city in Alberta is/was a railroad town. We need to bring back all types of passenger rail service to this province especially now with 5 million people as of 2024... And yes we need to invest heavily in commuter rail networks to really unlock the value of these communities...
Super interesting hearing an outside perspective. Thanks for taking the time to feature Calgary and Edmonton! I didn’t realize we were doing so well for density and light rail usage compared similarly populated cities.
Ridership per route mile is the best metric. Using that Edmonton and Calgary far outshine almost every North American LRT system except the Mexican ones...
I didn't realize this either. It's good to see we are doing well compared to others, but it also makes me sad for other North American cities if Edmonton is one of the best.
I would say one factor that plays into a lot of Albertans purchasing vehicles upon moving here (vs. not owning a vehicle in other parts of the country) is access to the outdoors. A substantial amount of people in Calgary spend their weekends in Banff, Kananaskis, etc. whereas Torontonians aren't going to Muskoka every weekend to bike, swim, and enjoy the outdoors. Good video overall!
Absolutely. That’s part of the urbanism feeling like a bubble: there will be lots of places outside of the city you’ll want to go (that won’t be transit accessible)
It should be noted that even highly urbanised countries like the Netherlands still have a relatively high car ownership rate (588 vehicles per capita, per Wikipedia). For reference, compare the rates for New Zealand (1086), the USA (908), Canada (790), and the UK (600). Cars are useful, but it doesn't mean they have to be used for everything. Car ownership rates don't really reflect how they're used, and it doesn't mean it's a bad thing to _own_ a car; only to build our cities exclusively for their use.
@@cmmartti This is a good point. When living in Calgary's beltline, I did definitely always own a car. But, it was one car between my partner and I, not one each. We also walked and took transit more often than we drove, generally. There were just a fair amount of cases where not owning a car would've been a huge inconvenience. And, those huge inconveniences ramped up quickly the further you lived away from the inner city and/or a train line. Now in Toronto, we don't own a car at all and those "huge inconvenience" cases don't really exist for us. Even so, we'd still like to get a car eventually. Just one car for occasional, specific uses.
This is something I think could be mitigated if there were frequent, reliable train service to Canmore, Banff and Lake Louise, maybe even with a stop at Kananaskis junction and some kind of shuttle service. A lot of people don't go park at a trailhead, they just go walk around the towns and enjoy the view, especially folks who have flown in and don't want to rent a car. It obviously wouldn't work for everyone, but I think there's a much bigger market for this than many people like to think.
@@Ramsayriderthe development group who runs Norquay has been pushing to have passenger rail service to the Banff station, but it seems to be potentially in trouble since part of the proposal includes a Banff-Norquay gondola line that Parks Canada has pretty firmly said no to.
It's so weird that there aren't intercity trainlines in the prairies anymore. The village I'm from initially developed under the assumption that it would be a major stopping off point for train travel. I think that if we want to bring back trains we need to remind people that was the norm last century and that we should rebuild it. The Calgary-Edmonton line can be advertised as the starting off point.
As a Torontonian native now living in Alberta, and with family living on the prairie lands throughout Manitoba and Saskatchewan. One thing that has astonished me with the prairies is that they always move forward with the times. Trains that were economical anymore were shutdown in the name of cost effective buses and transport trucks. There use to be a farmstead on each quarter section of land, but now one can’t even find any evidence of this. Because prairies just keep on moving forward. There are towns that had populations of over 400 people a century ago, but today their existence can be as hard to find as an ancient buried Egyptian ruin. Quite simply, the prairie lands always move forward to don’t dwell on the past. The prairie lands will rebuild the trains, if that is the way of the future.
If we could somehow bring passenger trains on the CN system the problem would be almost immediately solved. Freight rail runs through nearly every town and city in Alberta
The issue is that passenger train services like VIA rail need to sort of rent rail slots from the freight companies. Because of this, passenger travel must financially compete with freight transit. It turns out that one freight train can move a lot more value than a passenger train since freight trains tend to be longer and each car packed full. Back when we used to run more passenger rail there wasn't as much freight being moved but these days freight schedules on most major lines are completely full and semi trucks end up filling the additional demand that rail can't meet. It would take a major nation wide rail system upgrade to solve this problem (which would include cheaper shipping for other goods like oil and crops) but there doesn't seem to be much political interest in a major rail upgrade at the federal level. Personally I think it would make a lot of sense to twin the trans Canada rail line with an electric rail so that there could be two way traffic all the time. Since most locomotives are diesel electric (electric train with a diesel generator powering it) I'm sure that there could be a retrofit for them that allowed them to run on the electric line without burning diesel. This would be both cheaper than using diesel and better for our carbon emission goals (not that rail travel is a very large part of our national emissions).
Having always lived in “10-15 minutes” neighbourhoods in Victoria and Edmonton while often working out of town and even in suburban developments, I appreciate when I am carless, not having to pay for fuel, maintenance and insurance. When in Europe and Japan and even across Canada and the states, I took trains; even the now defunct Edmonton-Calgary train and recently decommissioned VanIsle train.(So sad.) Hopefully they’ll return. Trains are the best! So proud Edmonton is leading the way, in more than just trains. Thank you for this
ngl that shot at 11:54 of that one intersection in suburban Edmonton with the tim hortons and the petro canada made laugh. thats like peak suburban Canada right there, and its amazing how much of this nation just kinda looks like that
That was about as accurate of an assement of Alberta urbanism as any local could ever articulate. I am always impressed how you guys understand local communities so well through your research and experiences. Thanks for another outstanding video. I hope it motivates more ambitious urbanists to make a home here too we would love to have you all and there is so much potential in both cities.
Few errors and opinionated liberties (like having issues with the "wide roads" downtown--guess they've never seen rush hour) and the clear bias in the appreciation of our inefficient, overpriced ctrain system. Otherwise great video. I'd take the train every day if it weren't so useless.
@@cwx8 and what do you define as "useless"? Calgary definitely as a better layout and frequency of its light rail, then say Minneapolis-St Paul who have to rely on BRTs to fill in gaps now.
@@cwx8wide roads downtown are objectively a negative thing though. They promote a less lively downtown as it’s all about getting from one side to the other. Reduces room for transit and pedestrian areas, for markets, shops, etc. they also promote speeding which makes it a lot more dangerous
As someone in Lloydminster, I'd love a rail line between Edmonton and Calgary lol. Not only do I hate driving on the QE2, but I understand the value in having more public transit options between the centers and hope it could model expansion into further regions in coming decades.
Being able to avoid the highway destruction is such a massive advantage, even if it takes time for attitudes to fully change, having a good core helps with not having to expensively remove massive car infrastructure eyesores.
Our freeway plan in Edmonton was hilarious. We had American planners come in, just propose reaming broad swathes through the core, and cloverleaf everything. Then we hit the, "Okay. How do we pay for this?" stage, and the planners had apparently just assumed that there would be an American funding formula where 95% of it would be picked up by higher levels of government. Calgary got a bit more money for things on account of being more friendly to the provincial government.
This is excellent coverage of the strengths and weaknesses of urbanism in Alberta, great job! As someone born and raised in Calgary, you managed to cover the topic with the nuance of a local, though Calgary's bus system, from my experience, has pretty poor service (though I understand that this is changing). Both Calgary and Edmonton have big plans for urban mobility in the next few decades, so let's hope they can be actualized. These plans, if actualized, could dramatically shift how these cities evolve with their rapid growth, so let's hope for success despite the challenges brought by the provincial government.
As an Albertan I loved this video. People always hate on our cities for being “too sprawled” but I’ve never thought that was the case. You can generally drive from any point to another within either city in under 30 min. Walking, biking and transit as you mentioned are all very accessible for key locations. For all the people who I hear complaining in Edmonton; if you work in an office you can live downtown, buy a cheap 5k car, and you might only drive the thing one day a week. On the other hand as a very “blue collar” city in which a lot of work is done out of town; a lot of people do in fact need their trucks here. Just because someone is a welder with a big truck; that shouldn’t exclude them from easy downtown access either. Edmonton and Calgary seem to do a good job at balancing vehicle and public transit options to their downtown cores.
As a Calgarian, it's nice to see a balanced review. Learned that we have some of the best numbers in north america. Those numbers are almost exclusively people going down town. Going quadrant to quadrant on transit is terrible.
It hurts my heart when you say the bus frequency is pretty bad during off peak hours and I see the number, and it's the best case scenario for my local bus, which is part of what is considered one of the best transit systems in the US (admittedly, I'm on its outer edge).
Yeah, and my local bus #38 in Calgary runs every 19 minutes late in the night until around 1-1:30am, so Calgary Transit is definitely punching above its weight for cities our size on this continent.
Well, they didhn't actually show the worst. Off-peak, it can be 45 minutes or so between buses, and even at peak hours it's still only one about every 30. Not to mention that you often have to take multiple buses that don't have any sort of semblance of connections. A 12 minute car ride turns into an hour-and-a-half transit line, of which you're probably only spending about half-an-hour on buses, the other hour is just waiting for the bus to come. Before I got a car, it was actually quicker for me to take one bus and walk for 45 minutes rather than wait for the 3 buses that I would need to take to get home.
@@BenoHourglass This was me when I was attending University. The CTrain works well enough, but if you got to the station anytime after 6pm it was a 40 minute wait between buses. I'll still occasionally take the train (even though it's expensive now, at nearly $4 a trip), but if a bus is involved I'd rather just drive.
@@BenoHourglass that's kind of how it is here in the suburbs of Washington D.C. 30 minutes is best case. 60 is more common in off peak, and there are a couple times a day where it's closer to 80 minutes. And buses in my area stop around 9PM, even though the Metro train they connect to runs until midnight or later. I've walked home from the train station many times, because the 45 minute walk is better than waiting for the bus. And I'm lucky, because I actually live near a couple bus routes. Much of my area isn't nearly as well served. They've recently installed a bike share set-up at the train station, but haven't installed any docks in my part of town, so for anyone who lives near me, that's useless. At one job, which was just on the other side of the town I live in, about 5 miles (8km) away, it was an hour by bus. 20 minutes in the wrong direction to a train station. Wait 20 minutes. Then 20 minutes back into town to where my job was located. Nothing that went from my side of town to the other, even though that other side of town is where most of the business/offices/medical facilities are located. First thing in the morning, before traffic kicked in, I could bike there in about 30 minutes, but any time after about 7AM, there's no way to bike safely.
@@AustinSersen That would be amazing. Best case here, it's every 30. Last bus is 10 on weeknights and 8 or 9 on weekends (and that's after they expanded weekend service).
As an Edmontonian for the last 20 years (but raised in a small Alberta town), I have to say you nailed this vid! What a lovely video you guys made. Thanks for featuring us, and never heard the Alberta mentality explained so accurately. I learned a lot too! Thank you for this.
Ehhhh, Winnipeg got a shout-out! You summed up Portage&Main well. We mourn the still-buried street car lines. I'd love an Urbanist view on what the old streetcar network was like.
Worth mentioning that the same budget that opened Portage & Main also killed (or indefinitely backburnered) a massive lane expansion of a different arterial (Kennaston Blvd). Crazy how being out of money suddenly makes efficient city building seem more palatable.
@@SulfuricDonut the change at city hall did MORE to kill it and the other transit "BRT" lines that was part of that expansion project and now "bridge water" is "locked in" to being a car commuter expansion suburb with near as ZERO transit even knowingings it HAS density that would support transit
For well over a decade, all new subdivisions in Alberta were required to be high density homes. Including mix income homes including townhomes and apartment buildings/condos. Alberta is Canadas fastest growing province. With Calgary and Edmonton representing Canadas 4th and 5th largest cities respectively. And it is this zoning policy implemented by the province over a decade ago as to why the housing crisis is going unnoticed within Alberta, despite being the fastest growing economy in Canada. Things are of course not all rosy, but dig underneath the partisan noise, and note how well Alberta runs in comparison to other parts of Canada.
It's less of a requirement and more that the City lifted the density cap. Prior to 2007 that maximum was 7 units per acre. Now the minimum is 8 units per acre and in areas that are R-CG zoned you go up to around 30. Some commenters have noted some sprawling areas on the outskirts of Calgary similar to the American examples and I'd note for them that these are mostly areas that have been developed outside of City limits and are either still adjacent to Calgary or have been incorporated via annexation.
@@canuckasaurusit’s big problem that edmonton is unable to annex their suburbs like Calgary did. Strathacona county (specifically Sherwood park) and St. Albert should have been annexed years ago. It’s slowing down Edmontons ability to build transit and lrt lines into the suburbs.
@@pat9353 There are suburbs in the north, west, and south that are all part of the City. We're not at the same level as Calgary, but we're not all bad either.
@@pat9353 There are already (long term) plans to build the LRT to St Albert, they don't need to annex to do that. Also they are still so far from doing it that I don't see how annexing would solve that issue. Lastly, as a St Albert resident, I really don't want my city to be annexed by Edmonton. I suspect most St Albert residents would agree.
@@pat9353 It works both ways. Toronto annexation prevented a lot of dense urban development because people on the outskirts can suddenly vote against it, as happened with the Winnipeg example mentioned in the video.
I live on the edge of Downtown Edmonton, right by Rogers Place. One of those cycling paths you showed is the one I take regularly to get to the NAIT campus. I appreciate your insights on Edmonton and Calgary; sure we both have our flaws as cities, but I honestly appreciate that I can live without needing to rely on a car for everything. Hope you come back and visit more often! (Especially Edmonton, haha ;) )
The point about Winnipeg's suburban population voting down the opening of the central intersection to pedestrians was really interesting to me! The immediate follow-up on zoning reform is super relevant. Edmonton's City Plan states that it is no longer planning to expand nearly as much outwards into the prairies and instead focus on redevelopment and utilizing non-built areas and infill to increase density as population increases towards 2M people. I imagine that with higher density, more transit like the BRT lines being planned, the WVLRT being built towards Lewis Farms, and better bike and walking connectivity, something like what happened in Winnipeg may be a lot less likely to happen in Edmonton.
Strong Denver vibes. Denver and Calgary are actuall very often compared. Both large, both with strong oil/gas/ranching/mining economies, and both set on the Plains near the Rockies. Though it looks like Calgary is denser and more transit-rich than Denver. I live in a central Denver neigborhood, (Cheeseman Park) and I ike it a lot. But coming from the East Coast, it leaves much to be desired. Denver has a lot of rail transit lines, but none serve my neighborhood. The bus is not very frequent either. Denver has more legacy streetcar neighborhoods than one might expect. Residential neighborhoods with evenly dispersed commercial strips. They are lovely! But most of the city looks like Minneapolis or Phoenix. Single-family homes sprawling across the Plains. I appreciate your point that Calgary and Edmonton are very isolated from other urban areas, making it difficult for to readily compare them to cities on the coasts. I imagine Denver also occupies that space.
Just out of curiosity, are the neighbourhoods with steetcar access more expensive. If that is a plus for you in a neighbourhood, why did you choose a neighbourhood without streetcar access? I think in Canada, having good transit connections is often a driver of higher house prices, but not sure if that is just a Canadian thing.
I like to think that if Alberta had one bigger city rather than two big ish cities it would be extremely similar to Denver (Edmonton would add in more progressive politics and trees)
@@MrGpButlerStreetcar suburbs are neighbourhoods built around streetcars. The neighbourhoods still exist in many cities, but outside of Philadelphia very few of the streetcars remain.
@@seamusmuldrew5623 Alberta's a rather unique province in Canada in that it has 2 major cities that are around the same size. In BC, Ontario, and Québec, the largest metropolitan areas are about 5-6x the population of the 2nd largest. The province with the most comparable disparity is Saskatchewan, but Regina and Saskatoon aren't near the same level of population as Calgary and Edmonton.
As an Edmontonian for about 2 years, what I'm impressed about regarding the city's urban design is that it is segmented successfully (relatively speaking) into a few "mini-cities"--roughly, the west, north, south and east. No matter which area you live in, you get all the bells and whistles that meet all your needs within a reasonable distance. We never had to drive more than 15 minutes for any errands. It also helps that they have more lanes and wider roads (Yonge Street please take note).
We need to actually visit to make this kind of video, and we don't have any trip to Winnipeg planned. But who knows, maybe an opportunity will arise in the future!
A prairie city without oil money looks like Winnipeg. Meaning less historical buildings were torn down to build highrises. However it also doesn't have the zing and shling that Edm and cow town have . Winnipeg is a place I may move to for a change
I appreciate this as someone who visisted calgary last summer. The one problem with the CTrain is that they are too slow in the transit mall. Why? 1. Trains have to wait at lights like cars and buses; they don't receive absolute signal priority like they do in the suburbs, which makes them SUPER SLOW. Also, it is way too easy for people to drive onto the transit mall, and its very poorly marked. I saw a driver accidentally drive onto the mall and almost get hit by cars. And this is a hot take, but I think Calgary has too many stations downtown. I feel like the CTrain is trying to be a downtown people mover, which is nice, but it really slows down regional trips going though downtown. I think the solutions are thus 1. speed up trains going through downtown by installing crossing gates where trains get absolute priority and closing one stop in the transit mall in either direction (maybe EB Centre street and WB 4th street). 2. either paint the transit mall pavement red or make it green track.
Great video! Density stats in Edmonton is not always accurate as no one lives in the huge industrial areas . Central Edmonton is quite urban and dense. With the new zoning this will greatly increase going forward.
That's the main annoying thing about Edmonton to me: the giant industrial islands in the northwest and south that separate two groups of residential areas from each other. It's absolutely insane how big they are.
@@yaygyaalso gives us a lot of tax revenue that we don’t get from a large corporate downtown base. In many cities, that revenue just jumps to outside the city. We at least keep some of it ourselves.
They're freakin massive ! The beginning of the movie "Blues Brothers where they're flying over this huge Chicago industrial area totally reminded me of Edmonton😅@@yaygya
I recommend when you come back to check out Red Deer, the third-largest city in Alberta right in between Calgary and Edmonton. It did not avoid the big highway through the middle of town, but it has an interesting urban life that you might enjoy and a good park system. Great video, amazing how accurate you were!
I didnt even know Calgary had a BRT system but it seems thoughtfully implemented for orbital and secondary corridors to supplement the C-train. Its great that even despite the odds that the 2 do such a good job at density and transit. I do also heavily support the idea of a direct intercity train route between the 2 cities, even if it doesnt have to be 300km/h, 250, 230, or even just 200 could still do wonders for the province and the 2 cities.
Great video as always. For the record, Edmonton has its own +15 network as well it's just not as widespread as the Calgary one. This one goes from about 97 St in the East to 104 St in the West, Jasper Avenue to 104 Ave South to North and gives us a much needed break from the bone-chilling Albertan winters of -40c with the GD wind-chill... And now the sweltering summers of +40c with the GD Humidex! As a 4G Albertan whose first immigrants moved here in 1906 just after it became a province, it's amazing to think that there are now 5 million living here in 2024 when I was a kid it was barely over 2 million. And also slightly sad to see how much the province has backslid on urbanism since essentially every town and city was established as a railroad community, save for a handful of fur-trading forts that have now become actual communities. If the province is serious about addressing both its housing affordability and congested road networks they need to follow through on their rumors of starting regional commuter rail networks for both Edmonton and Calgary. You'd be surprised how much more money you can save moving to a community 50 km from either downtown, except around the closest ring of cities which have already seen a huge boom and are now behind on offering proper commuter services (Cochrane, Airdrie, Okotoks, St Albert, Sherwood Park, Spruce-Grove/Stony Plain, Leduc) and now offer Edmonton prices with sadly Brooks level attractions..
The stat that Calgary has higher rail transit ridership than San Francisco is incredible when you think of the difference population of the two metro areas. 5x the population or so?
It's artificially maintained. Nenshi is on public record stating that he uses artificial parking prices to tamp down driving demand. It's why we have the 2nd highest parking costs in North America. Despite a poll in his last term showing thta 76% of Calgarians would prefer to drive, he rejected calls to reduce CPA lot prices to ensure higher transit demand.
@@cwx8 Ummmm I'm from San Francisco and can tell you our parking is also outrageously expensive and difficult to find. It's one of the biggest stressors of living in the Bay Area. People get into nasty fights over parking and parking enforcement is seen as a cash cow.
@@IdanKashani parking is easy to find in Calgary. There's tons of it. The city artificially maintains high prices to force more people to take transit. Our parking costs are higher than San Fran. Yet we have plenty of availability.
Wow, thanks for having a look at my city of Edmonton. I like your summary that bike infrastructure is quite good but only as pockets and not yet a full network. I Iook forward to the day that LRT is extended to my quadrant of the city (northwest).
I've lived in Calgary for nearly 8 years and have subsisted (albeit with some occasional difficulties) without a driver's license that entire time. Of course, most of that time I was going to school, so I just had to be near enough to the C-Train that UofC wasn't too long of a commute, but the transit system has treated me very well in my time here.
You say the prairies may be a difficult environment for urbanism. But it also creates an advantage, as there is quite a hard boundary between "the city" and "the emptiness around": People outside the metro area are so few and far away, there is no point into seeing them as regular visitors.
When Calgary built the on-street LRT on 7th Ave, they also required new construction and renovations along 8th Avenue to build a portion of an underground LRT under 8th Avenue including complete train stations. However, this underground line will not likely be used as handicap requirements have changed. An underground segment will likely be further north under Eau Claire. There was an underground opening to the unused 8th Avenue segment from the underground portion of the original line and during a transit strike, urban explorers and graffiti artists explored the unused 8th avenue line and train stations so they bricked off that entrance.
Is this that Hogwarts entrance you see coming into downtown from Stampede Park? I always thought it was strange seeing what looked like an obvious train tunnel that never got used.
As someone who lives near Calgary, the Nose Creek Pathway is one of the best pathways anywhere in North America. It’s extremely well maintained, and you only have to slightly interact with cars when it switches to the other side of the creek.
I think this level of Urbanism in Alberta is possible because folks who bristle under the rural car culture in the rest of the Province concentrate in Edmonton and Calgary. That Alberta's energy economy is strong due to nigh-universal inelastic demand probably helps revenues for actually doing these things. My bigger question becomes whether these cities clear snow and ice from bike lanes as quickly as they do roads and streets.
Edmonton rarely clears snow from Roads, but always clears the snow from the bike lanes. And doesn’t look like money well spent. Since it is so cold in edmonton, and dry in the prairies, snow behaves differently and plowing neighborhoods isn’t a priority. If my street gets plowed in Edmonton, it will be once a year.
Only 3 dozen or so people ride their bikes in winter in Calgary. And none of them do it when it’s below -25. And none of them do it when it’s actively snowing.
I think the urbanism in Alberta is because: A) we can't afford to build roads that will allow us to sprawl like crazy; B) the cold climate and the issue with wind in winter makes it more agreeable to build tightly; C) workplaces have generally been quite concentrated whether that be the meat packing plants in both cities or the refineries and services for the oilfield.
As an Edmontonian, I had to laugh when they said that. I get what they were meaning, but we're only "sister cities" if you're comparing us to sisters that argue with each other about every single thing 😂
As someone who lives in Edmonton but was born in Calgary, I too am puzzled by this comment. Sister cities is perfectly fine. I did chuckle about it in the video, since many people outside of Alberta often think that Calgary is the capital.
I travelled to both Calgary and Edmonton last year and relied heavily on transit it both towns, as well as intercity bus to get between the two (with a pit stop halfway at Red Deer for the night). I agree, it was definitely a surprising step up from what I experience in Ottawa on a daily basis. That said, as someone who travels at least twice a year between Ottawa and far off Sarnia (which is also, notably, a very rural and historically oil-centric town [Imperial Oil might be based in Alberta now, but it was founded in Lambton County!]) at least twice a year by train, I do feel some kind of rail between the two cities could be extremely useful. Not that the intercity bus wasn't fine, but train would have really elevated the experience. It doesn't have to be fancy or high-speed to start. Something akin to VIA Rail's Windsor-Quebec corridor would do just fine. It could really connect a lot of those larger surrounding cities, like Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat or even Banff to the urban centres - and if Saskatchewan and Manitoba got on board to the point where travellers don't have to rely on flying or even the two trips made by the Canadian in a week, it would make exploring the entire region a blast for those of us who can't drive and enjoy train travel.
Something you forgot to mention: Calgary's transit service isn't 24/7 (unless it's stampede). After midnight you're on your own. The city was also hostile against Uber thanks to the cab companies. So unless you have your own car you're limited when it comes to taking advantage of Calgary's nightlife.
Both things you said are true, but Uber pretty handily won that battle a few years ago so it's not as much of an issue now. Of course the transit situation after dark is still unchanged
You are misinformed - the city isn't hostile to Uber. It did regulate Uber more than many other cities, in terms of licensing for vehicles and drivers, so there was a late and slow start. But in the end that was a good thing. Uber service has been fantastic here for years.
Isn't this true for most places? I lived in Japan for 6 years and in two different parts of the country, and their trains ended earlier than Calgary's do. Toronto's seemed to run a bit later, but it didn't seem to run that long after midnight.
@@ScooterinAB Yeah, 24/7 metro service is unusual. I know of NYC (which has duplicate tracks, so can run locals while doing maintenance) and some of the Chicago lines (some also duplicate, not sure about the Blue Line.) 24/7 bus service is less unusual, though often scaled back a lot. Around 2000, San Francisco had a thin network of "owl" service running every 30 minutes in the wee hours of the morning.
i once did the math, and if we had passenger rail connecting through calgary north-south (edmonton-red deer-airdrie-calgary-okotoks-high river-fortmacleod-lethbridge) and east-west (medicine hat-brooks-strathmore-calgary-Cochrane-Banff), we could connect 75% of Alberta’s total population, or around 3 million people. considering how congested the highways are north and west of calgary, parking issues in banff, and the number of flights every day to Edmonton, the rail would be a hit. there’s been talk of passenger rail for decades, but its just talk. but you can ask any calgarian, and they will agree a train to edmonton and banff would be good for everyone.
… a train between cities?? I’m Canada?? A reasonable connection?? Oh my, We really do need this. I hope the NDP or Conservative add it to their campaign.
I live in Calgary and the i highly support a high speed railway to both Edmonton and Calgary, connecting the two cities. We should learn how China and Europe invests to fast speed railways, making the trips easier and efficient.
Did you know that metro Tokyo has a higher population than *_Canada_* , and metro Osaka has a population higher than Australia? And metro Shanghai has a population larger than Japan? Please get real.
An HSR line with a pitstop in Red Deer still makes sense to me. However, I think an even more sensible line would be a Swiss-style line (vista cars, ski and bike storage, sustainably high prices, maybe with subsidies for employers that allow them to distribute passes to employees) from Calgary to Banff.
Personally, I'd prefer a stop between Red Deer and Sylvan Lake, with a local rail service that can connect them all. A greenfield development there could be a great opportunity. Idk if it would be possible to dig some canals out from the lake, but that would be awesome. That's the sort of development I think would attract people to using transit. I've been all over Europe and believe me, the aesthetic of the station area matters. Actually, a HSR line could perhaps do hourly express service, with more frequent regional service that stops at green field developments adjacent to the towns, creating a local destination for people in those towns, while also attracting outsiders to them.
I would support it even if we went light rail to cheapen out but branched it to go Calgary with a Branch off to Banff or Cochrane, Airdrie, Olds, Red Deer with a Branch off to Sylvan Lake, Lacombe, Wetaskiwin, Nisku, Edmonton
@@MrGpButler Yes, I love seeing all of the construction! We're also attempting to convert all R-1 zones to R-CG which expands the zoning to allow for 4 front doors on any property that currently is exclusively single family. We're voting on that housing strategy April 22. We're also starting to explore converting the C-Train Park n Rides to housing with Franklin Station being the first. Maybe they're using this as a test bed at a station that currently experiences an underutilized parking lot. I'd also like to see it done at Brentwood Station where much of the free parking is just being used by students at UCalgary who walk over to the university. We could easily fit a few hundred thousand more people in our city if we developed the LRT Park n Rides into high density mixed use housing. Residents who would be far more likely to use transit to get around...accomplishing two goals at once: increasing transit ridership and increasing the housing supply.
Can any Calgarians fill me in on the BRT system there? Specifically which of the five features of the BRT standard are implemented: - fare payment before boarding and boarding through all doors simultaneously - platform-level boarding, wheelchair accessible without deploying a special ramp - dedicated BRT right of way - BRT right of way aligned to minimize conflict with parking, loading, and turning - intersection treatments prohibiting motorist turns across the BRT right of way
It's been a long time since I was in Calgary, but the BRT was running when I was there. Dedicated right of way was a thing, and I think platform-level boarding was semi-there. I think boarding through all doors was also a thing, but not fare payment before boarding. I don't think the intersection treatment was done though, but it may be in place now.
As a Calgary resident, I really liked seeing this video. I love living here but I always feel that I can't do all of the things I want to do without a car. Even just every day stuff was really hard when I lived in the Beltline. The addition of multi-family housing zoning would be really great... if it didn't open them all up to buyouts by larger companies and force people to rent. I understand that we need it and I like that they're trying but we need some way to open these places up to actual people who will live in them rather than landlords. As for the value thing, I've never really understood it. Your house is not an investment, it's a need. I wouldn't call my lunch an investment, I wouldn't call my clothes an investment. I understand that they want what they pay for but owning property shouldn't feel like buying into a stock market.
"we need some way to open these places up to actual people who will live in them rather than landlords." British Columbia's BC Builds program is intended to do exactly that, by making new housing available to non-profits, co-ops, and community land trusts to maintain rather than private landlords. I really wish we had a program like that in other places too.
The idea of housing as an investment came about, in part, because it is easier to build wealth by investing in housing than to invest in other things and easier than saving.
Are you aware of the upzoning vote coming up on April 22? This would seriously help the missing middle!! City council is taking people's input, it would really be worth it to write a letter to city council about this!!
@@RhianneLaventure yes and I've already dune this. I'm glad that they're taking this step but I didn't see anything in there that would prevent someone or some company developing these types of properties specifically to rent. But I'm not really well versed in reading these things.
I live in Calgary and housing is in absolute crisis here. Also, transit availability depends a lot on where you are. My wife can walk to work but if I tried to take transit I would have a one way commute time of over TWO HOURS, while in a car it's about twenty minutes.
I think the main difference between Alberta's two largest cities vs. similar US cities is culture. There doesn't seem to be as much of the "drive or f*ck off!" mentality or irrational fear of crime as in much of the USA. American culture celebrates anger and selfishness, which heavily fuels car-centric policy and design. Political will to build anything other than highways has also helped Calgary and Edmonton, which can't be said about many US cities.
Both cities definitely have pockets of density. I’m more familiar with Edmonton whose Oliver neighborhood has long had low rise apartments as well as mid to high rise towers. Similarly the older neighborhood east of the downtown in Boyle Street has long had low rise apartments for well over 60 years and is also home to high rise dwellings.
It's crazy how high Calgary's ridership is. According to that graph, over a quarter of the metro city's entire population takes the LRT every single day. That's nuts.
I think there is also a strong spatial split of who is served with transit. As someone from the SE, I truly didnt know a single person who took transit besides one university student who still drove to the train. Every stop on the red line is a park and ride outside of downtown, this isn't even an exaggeration. how it feels to me is that Calgary doesn't actually have a successful transit system, but a successful parking lot displacement system. This is at least in the south. It kinda is baffling to me that no one seems to explicitly mention this
@@crgd23 I think that just shows how limited it is. Most stations don't have homes within walking distance. Parking lots have densities of a 4 story building, they are just needlessly kneecapping their system. There is effectively no reason to hop on a train in south Calgary unless you're going downtown.
@@gentlydown41 Tons of people go to Chinook station to use the mall, so many that they had to build that sky bridge thing across Macleod and across part of the mall's parking lot.
Edmonton started to build its LRT in the 1970s, but the system didn't really attain much effectiveness until the 1990s, when it finally reached University of Alberta. Then the south extension of the early 2000s really brought the ridership. Sometimes it feels like it's taking forever, and it almost surprises me that I look around now and have three working LRT lines and that there's cyclists everywhere.
A large chunk of Calgary and Edmonton are people people who work as roughnecks and tradesmen across the province, but live in the city. We like our trucks and we like our public transit, it's not mutually exclusive. The Deer Foot is an effective highway, and the ring road is great. I would also add that high speed rail would be an expensive prestige project, where as a double track Higher-speed rail going 150km across the 300km from downtown Calgary to downtown Edmonton would be cheaper to build and maintain with higher capacity. Finally the political culture of Alberta prioritizes fiscal responsibility and economic development, "Pay your own way" could be our motto.
Great video about our Alberta cities. I'm a drone operator in Edmonton and recognize a few of my clips. You present an accurate snapshot of Edmonton, but there are some problems with the security and cleanliness of our transit system. Ridership could be even better, if the trains stations weren't used as homeless shelters and even drug dens.
That's the fault of the provincial government defunding public education, mental healthcare, addictions care, and social services, as well as funding only 1/3 of the shelter spaces in Edmonton that they do in Calgary. Not the fault of the transit system.
I remember exploring Edmonton transit on Google maps and was surprised to see that there was no regular ETS bus service to the VIA Rail Station, located in an industrial rail yard and undeveloped area near the city, while the federal prison Edmonton Institution for Women had an all-day bus every 15-30 minutes running past the front gates in a light industry suburb. Seriously, one would thing that an intercity rail station generates more transit demand than a federal penitentiary!?
Edmonton had a downtown station with good transit service, at the CN Tower. It also had a CP station in Strathcona and there was once a CP station at 110th & Jasper. These all had good transit service because there were lots of train passengers every day. Via does not provide daily service. The station lands were coveted for other uses.
@@rwrynerson VIA's station is no longer a t those places you just named. I tis now off of 121st Street and Yellowhead Trail south of SN's walker yard near the Prince Charles Neighbourhood, it what should otherwise be called the middle of nowhere in Edmonton. It is a real travesty that there is no VIA rail service between Edmonton and Calgary.
Great video! I live in Edmonton and love all the efforts to make this city a place for everyone. I think Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary should have something like brightline train built between Orlando and Miami.
Oil isn't just used to make petrol and diesel for cars. It's used in everyday products. At the very least used in the manufacturing of everyday products. So it's not exactly paradoxical to think that oil sector workers would commute to downtown or live in a walkable nieghbourhood. Even if we significantly reduced car ownership in our society, oil would still be needed.
In the US, 2/3 of petroleum products are used directly for transportation, and much of the rest is burned for heat. "Feedstocks for actual stuff like plastic" might be only a few percent, though I don't have good numbers.
Didn't expect to see my city up here! Just last municipal election we had a guy running on the sole principle of getting rid of all the bike lanes. I didn't realize things were even worse elsewhere!
This was a really thoughtful and nuanced analysis of the state of urbanism in our cities- I'm really looking forward to showing this video to othes to help make the case that Calgary and Edmonton aren't as much of a lost cause as people may think, despite the cultural/political challenges.
The worst part is, Alberta could be considered the "best" for winters, as there AB is one of the sunniest areas in the country, as the BC west-coast casts a rain shadow (meaning low precipitation) over AB. Though, there is no shortage of asphalt and dirty snow. Ontario, from my experience, has much gloomier winters, with it being constantly overcast, with lots of paved surfaces, and dirty snow or brown-grey dead grass. But the summers are very nice for sure, and the winters really help you appreciate them 😅
That's especially true of the cities, because the snow gets dirty, but the countryside can be quite beautiful and surprisingly bright and sunny in the winter.
Calgary is one of the sunniest cities in North America and unlike Europe Canadian cities are surrounded in natural treed rivers hills etc. The Rocky Mountains are visible from Calgary to the west.
Alberta's largest revenue comes from cattle, then, natural gas, LNG, petrochemicals and then crude oil. Petrochemicals are used in pretty much everything you use in your daily lives. It is an industry that isn't going away anytime soon.
Way better video and attitude towards urbanism than NJB! The fact Calgary has one of the best road networks out there combined with a growing urbanism design and a decent LRT system is always something I appreciate while living here. Looking forward to the green line!
Nice video! For anyone that's wanting to know more about cities in Alberta I will put a list of pros and cons. -Calgary is the sunniest city in Canada-Edmonton is the second sunniest city in Canada -On 10:10 you were saying that the only railway was from Edmonton to Vancouver, and that's correct but the other option was Greyhound that's a bus dept company. You can go from Edmonton to Calgary and or from Calgary to Vancouver but sadly Greyhound shut down in Alberta. -Calgary used to be the cleanest city in the world -Hail damage is a big thing in Calgary -Alberta's cities have a higher ground so don't underestimate Alberta's weather -Calgary's one of the most livable cities -For businesses North Carolina is one of Alberta's biggest exporters and importers -Alberta has the biggest GDP per capita in Canada -Alberta is the only province in Canada to only have one tax unlike the other provinces in Canada -Calgary is the most conservative city in Canada-Alberta has the hardest education curriculum in Canada -Crime rates and population are going up so technically Alberta is becoming like Atlanta -Edmonton has the largest mall in North America -Alberta is one of the provinces that doesn't have the United Kingdom on their flag -Calgary has the longest runway in Canada -On 10:36 the high speed rail line has been up since around 2017 because Alberta needed funding but Ontario (Prime Minister) rejected the funding, so now after the cost to make/create the high speed rail line has been sky rocketing. -In Alberta no matter how cold it is and no matter how much snow there is, school will not be canceled even when it's -40 -People usually call Alberta as the "Canadian Texas" -In Alberta when Justin Trudeau visits Alberta he doesn't notify anyone because of how much he's hated here -In 1974 when Quebeckers were discussing to separate from Canada, there was many Albertans were also began to consider a separation -Alberta gets undervalued by Ontario -The 6 billion dollar housing plan that Justin Trudeau created was coming out of the carbon tax and if a Premier accepted the plan then all you can do with that money is to only build duplexes, apartments, and etc. But in my opinion this plan was to destroy Alberta since Toronto is a crowded city, and Toronto's traffic is even worse than New York city. Hopefully you guys learned something new about Alberta and a bit of Canada. This comment may be edited for an updated list of things about Alberta.
im from Calgary and can 100% confirm another reason to have a car is being able to visit the mountains on your own time or enjoy the environment. Ive also met people in the post office that petition the local government against 15min city's as some of the biggest proponents of them are related to the world economic form that doesn't have Calgarians best interests at heart.
Calling Edmonton's LRT system successful is EXTREMELY high praise. It was awesome in it's original form, but the recent expansions have been egregious failures
Anyone have any insight on why Edmonton's LRT ridership is so much less than Calgary's? If I had to guess, I think Edmonton's trains have a worse reputation, and I also believe that Calgary's (current) system is bigger. While I think the Valley Line (when fully completed) will allow Edmonton to catch up in terms of distance covered, and I believe that the tram style of the Valley Line could either hinder or help the amount of people who take it. The tram style means slower commute times versus something like a Skytain, but the tram style also means it will go straight through some densely populated neighborhoods as opposed to highways which will hopefully mean more people can easily access the train.
Calgary's system is larger in length and number of stations. The downtown workforce, while currently suffering numbers, is still massive, and downtown parking rates are very high. That means very high ridership numbers. It's a decent system, but it's largely based on park and ride suburban commuters. In my opinion, Edmonton, while slower to develop its system due to a few different reasons, has done a little better at connecting actual locations that people want to get to other than work downtown. When Valley Line West is complete, all the major hospitals and post-secondary institutions will be served by LRT.
It's a puzzle to me, too. That there's a disparity isn't surprising, given Calgary's longer system, higher job density downtown, and slightly larger population, but that the difference is so large, it piques my curiosity.
@@robertcartwright4374 I would guess a lot of it has to do with jobs. Edmonton's downtown still feels dead post pandemic, while Calgary feels like its returning to life. I know my old corporate job in Edmonton was in an industrial office building, because the company didn't like having an office Downtown.
You really showcased my city in a fine light. Yes the public transit is better than most American cities but the city still has a lot of Autocentric war zones.
You should do a deeper dive into the LRT and CTrain. There's a lot of people that think light rail means a streetcar. But Edmonton shows it can be a subway in the downtown part and dedicated right of way for the legs into the suburbs. And long trains at 125 m. And fast, easily reaching 80 km/hr.
Boston's Green Line and SF Muni are like that. Downtown tunnels, branching out into streetcars (mostly with right of way, though Boston's E line mixes with cars) further out. Not so much long trains (two cars) or fast, though. Maybe Boston's D line, which runs in a trench so is grade-separated without being a full subway.
@@mindstalkSorry but there's the confusion. It's not a streetcar when it's a separate right of way. Streetcar is running with traffic. Running a LRT as a streetcar is a horrible, horrible implementation of a train system.
Calgary didn't put the LRT above ground downtown for the reason you stated. The trains were put above ground because the tunnel that was dug under the core had massive flooding and stability issues due to the high water table.
Great video. I live in the Calgary area and to be honest, I don't feel that much need to go to Edmonton that I want to use a bullet train to get there. I only go every few years.
My friend Ben designed that Amsterdam facade in Edmonton and it was the insistence of the developer/owner to mismatch the name of this folly! Agree with your conclusion having lived in Edmonton for 20 years before moving back to my Toronto birthplace. Never had to own a car though, living by the university and Old Strathcona.
City wide networks of indoor streets, be it elevated skyways or underground, are just plain good, and "temperate" cities should have more of them. I'm also glad to see wide streets winning again for multimodal conversions, my local 2 lane is just not going to get safe bike infrastructure, ever.
Indoor streets are cute and maybe they can be good, but they have a lot of problems. The skyways I've seen obviously don't have shops along the bridges, they're just walkways, and you're walking between big private buildings, not in the public way. Montreal's underground is very confusing, and I think also connects private basements. As for 2 lane streets, if they're residential/low-traffic, they can be safe as shared streets with traffic calming and modal filtering. The Dutch are famous for protected bike paths, but most of their street kilometers are shared but slowed. Likewise in Japan: mostly slow shared 1-lane streets, then wide sidewalks along bigger roads.
You forgot to mention oil and gas has their own political party the UPC, that has governed Alberta for decades only interrupted by 4 years of NDP governance.
The first LRT trains purchased by Calgary were the exact same Siemens train as Edmonton had purchased at the same time (the Edmonton train shown on the left of the thumbnail) so Edmonton's LRT had a lot of influence in the first train selection for Calgary even though Bombardier was willing to add a short segment of monorail segment to the Airport as a pilot project for free if the city bought Bombardier LRT trains (the city would still have to pay for the rest of the monorail segment to actually reach anything).
The provincial minister of commerce, Hon. Horner, was key to making sure that Calgary didn't go after a different car. It was such a small market that we had to stick together to make it worthwhile.
@@rwrynerson Does it take provincial politics to make municipal decisions, would it not have been enough for the two cities to simply coordinate with each other. All transit vehicles including buses are low volume and often custom built, if the Bombardier offer was not competitive then it would not have been a contender, if the Siemens offers a discount if the two cities combined their orders but Bombardier did not, the cities would likely have overcome their hockey competitiveness of their own accord simply to acquire a better price. With provincial involvement, it becomes uncertain if economics was truly the motivation.
I think Edmonton has an overall bigger urban area footprint than Calgary. Once outside downtown you have Kensington and Englewood ( great areas!) but they are small. Edmonton has several that go for many km outside downtown.
Both Edmonton and Calgary are excellent places to live. If you drive the Edmonton's northern municipal boundary ... it's straight up in the country. And there are many times while I am driving toward either Edmonton or Calgary, and I'm clearly in the countryside ... but also just 20 minutes from my destination well within the city.
Although I like the idea of of amenities being more easy accesible without needing a car I also think that it is usually handled in the wrong way where it is a public project. "Why should I be forced to pay for a new public transport system in the middle of the city that I don't care of and I would never use since I live way over the outskirts?" say the people when they get taxed for it and they feel they got robbed by the gov that usually use the "everyone money" as a budget for this things (usually, I don't live in Canada so maybe I'm wrong). In my opinion this kind of project should be funded by the areas directly affected and maybe the adjacent ones too, if I want a better public transport system or a new one I must fund it myself, and the others interested must pay too, but I should force John Smith the humble farmer to pay for it. This way those rural and suburbs areas should be (maybe) less negative about transit improvements
I never use the Edmonton LRT because it's not safe enough. A man was stabbed to death at Belvedere train station by a stranger who was just out of bail, 2 pre teen girls put a senior woman in a coma at the Coliseum LRT station, another man was attacked right after boarding a bus outside of Coliseum station by a stranger, 3 weeks ago a senior citizen was violently attacked by 6 strangers at Churchill station, last February at Vally Line LRT a man was attacked by 4 strangers. After looking at the EPS crime map, these are not the only dangerous LRT events. There are more than a few dangerous weapon reports in those areas. Canada needs more jail instead of bail for dangerous offenders. The Liberal Party and the NDP voted together against a Bill meant to stop the revolving door bail system. It seems they are sympathetic towards criminals.
I'm just worried no one has thought about Calgarys water problem, I mean if you just keep adding population to a drying landscape well i foresee problems.
