Jan
16
(2006)
The Blog @ Calgary on Suburban Sprawl
Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: calgary, sustainableenergy, tuscany.
Ted posted a great piece on suburban sprawl in Calgary, with references to the Sierra Club’s research. I agree that Calgarians are afflicted with the “Don’t fence me in” syndrome. A city with the geographical area of Orange County, but a population of only 1 million people. Calgary has approximately 10% the population density of New York City. About 20% the density of San Francisco. About a quarter the density of Vancouver. (comparison of various population densities)
Calgary has approximately the same population density as Boise, Idaho. That just doesn’t scale. Nobody wants to turn Calgary into New York City - that density would drive most Canadians insane - but approaching Vancouver’s density wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, if done properly.
As a SUV-driving suburban dweller, I’m as much a part of the problem as anyone. My footprint is much smaller than many others, though (my SUV is really just a big station wagon, built on the Camry chassis rather than a Big Heavy Truck frame, and my suburban home is a decidedly modest one, with 1,400 square feet and a lot that is only ~36 feet wide).
But, the design of my suburban community could be much better. The commercial services are all aggregated in the exact centre of the community, meaning those living toward the edges are much more likely to drive to the corner store (it’s a 15 minute walk from my house - one we don’t take often enough).
One thing in our favour is the public transportation system. Although it’s far from perfect, I do get almost door-to-door service between my house and the University via bus. And the LRT is coming closer, meaning the schlubs that have to commute downtown will have an easier time leaving their H2s at home.
Update: The comparison between Calgary and Orange County was unbelievably inaccurate. Calgary is much smaller than Orange County, and actually has a higher population density, according to Wikipedia.
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[...] Both D’Arcy and Ted write about urban sprawl today. Ted posted this remarkable fact (must be, I am remarking on it after all!) Just to give you an idea of the scope of the problem, consider this oft quoted statistic: New York City, with about the same area as Calgary, has almost ten times our population. [...]
Hey, way back when I first lived in Cowtown, I participated in the Go committee transit planning exercise (can’t even remember it’s proper name, this was like 15 years ago). Back then Calgary had only 600K people, and was already the least dense city per capita in North America. It was obvious even then that routes like Macleod Trail and Bow Trail (amongst many others) would eventually turn into parking lots if everyone kept working downtown but living in ever-expanding suburban sprawl. There were lots of good suggestions even back then; the problem has never been the inability to idenitfy the problem, or even to identify half-decent solutions. Especially in Calgary, the problem has been total lack of political will. I kid you not, it was one of the reasons we moved away; as such a new city, Calgary was designed as totally car dependant, and I never saw one iota of larger political will to do anything about it, even though 15 years ago we were already trying to tell them that they needed to promote other parts of the city as ‘work centres’ and start legislating developers so that each new subdivision wouldn’t be built around the car and a 10 minute drive to get a litre of milk. But as long as that wind keeps blowing out of the mountains and you don’t get too many of those famous brown “temperature inversions,” it will take so long for the air quality there to become continuously degraded that I don’t hold much hope of change. But I hope I am proved wrong.
Scott, I completely (and sadly) agree with you. The problem is well defined. The solution from The Administration is simple: BUILD MORE ROADS! The way to prevent suburban blight is to BUILD A RING ROAD! No critical thinking involved. No risk-taking. Bronco would be voted out (or worse) for doing anything different in The Oil Capital of Canada (and soon The World).
In a way, it’s even more frustrating because Calgary will likely be able to get away with maintaining this insane mindset long after the rest of the continent has been forced to adapt. We make the oil here in Alberta. Barring any oil wars from our southern neighbors *ahem* we’ll be swimming in the stuff for another 50-100 years…
I remember GO Plan when I got here, 10 years ago.
But D’arcy, to be fair, the city is progressing with LRT expansion and such. I think they have to over build the public transit corridors with the philosphy of “if you build it…”
If you happen to live on a good lline (like you or me) then transit (we call it “The Better Way, in To) works. But try to get from one corner to another… man. I know my son tried to explain it - apparatnyl our routes are very logical, and designed to bring you to transit corridors. It’s hard for me to visualize.
ANd to give you an idea of how TO works… my mom lives about 10 km from the downtown. One bus and one subway ride brings you to Bloor-Yonge. If you catch the bus just right (every fifteen minutes like clockwork) it took 22 mins to get from the edge of Scarborough to the DT Pretty impressive I thought.
Calgary’s model of public transportation is almost 100% designed around a Trunk and Feeder layout that resembles a circulatory system. If you don’t start on an artery, and hope to wind up somewhere on the trunk, you need to budget over an hour each way in travel time. Meaning a quick trip to a dentist or doctor can essentially take up a whole day if you don’t have a car. Not exactly conducive to reducing the mass of metal being transported around our shiny new freeways.
TO, or Montreal, or San Francisco, all have systems that work MUCH better for regular use by real people. Calgary is built out to support commuting from the suburbs to downtown, and then back home.
Your stats on Calgary’s size versus Orange Country are WAY off….
Could be - I believe I read that comparison on Wikipedia. I’ll do some more research and correct it ASAP. But, it’s a minor part of the overall point, that Calgary is waaaay more sprawly than in needs to be…
Yeah. Boy did I screw up the comparison between Calgary and Orange County. Calgary’s much smaller, and actually has a higher pop. density (according to Wikipedia, anyway). I’m not sure where I got that fact from - I thought it was from Wikipedia, but I can’t remember. Hopefully the last time I use an uncited “fact” in a post. Sorry about that. I guess, on the upside, the post still works without that claim, so it’s not a fatal blow to anything besides my ego
I’m going to leave the comparison in (but struck out) as a reminder to myself to check facts…
Hi,
Just moved to calgary and a friend sent me this video…. pretty funny. Haven’t checked out the website at the end yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l3VAFYfmAI