Danny B

If you were to work in downtown Calgary for 1 year and then move to Ogden, where would you be looking for a detached house to buy? What are some decent areas?

1. $500k budget
2. My commute would be by public transport when downtown, and then by car when in Ogden.
3. Daughter 10, Son 18 so close to decent School(s).
4. Family neighbourhood
5. Some nice nearby open areas to walk dogs.

Thanks very much for any advice.

Almost Canadian

Ogden is a community in Calgary. I suggest you look there

All of Ogden may be able to tick those boxes, although the east side of it appears industrial.

I would think that anywhere near the river will suffice, although you may struggle to achieve that with that budget.

Most would say any community in the SE.

I would have a look on realtor.ca and see what tickles your fancy

Danny B

Thanks for your advice, that helps narrow down my search.

Just out of curiosity, how long is an average morning commute from one side of Calgary to the downtown area? Say from the furthest neighbourhood in the SE area to downtown?

Thanks again.

Almost Canadian

It depends upon what time of day and what mode of transport.

The C-Train, essentially, follows Macleod Trail to the south and terminates at Somerset. If you lived in the SE, but close to Macleod Trail, you could drive to a station and take the C-Train downtown. I travel via C-Train every day and, from Somerset, it takes about half an hour. Some communities have feeder buses to the C-Train, many don't.

Parking downtown is relatively expensive. If you get there early, the cost is around $25 - $40 a day.

It may be possible to take Deerfoot Trail to downtown. However, this is the main feeder route into downtown and it gets very busy during rush hour. One crash, and both highways grind to a halt due to rubbernecking.

I live south of the city and, at the time I sometimes drive in, I can make it from the city limits to downtown in around 30 mins. However, that is travelling at 5:00 a.m. Rush hour begins at 6:00 a.m. ish. In the afternoon, rush hour begins at 4:00 p.m. and continues to around 6:30 p.m, Leaving downtown at around 6:30 p.m. would likely mean you would have a relatively clear run.

I rarely drive during rush hour so I will defer to the greater knowledge of those that do.

There are many rat runs to downtown that you will become familiar with once you begin driving during rush hour. Essentially, from a north/south perspective, you need to avoid Macleod and Deerfoot at all costs. However, there are a fair few relatively major roads that run parallel to these and, once you work out the appropriate east/west cut throughs, it is possible to avoid the major headaches.

Some communities have buses that travel downtown. Some of these are express buses that should travel relatively quickly. However, they don't run that often and, if you wish to have flexibility, they would not be a good option.

Put simply, I would avoid driving downtown purely due to the cost of parking. A monthly transit pass is $94 and this provides unlimited journeys on all C-Trains and buses.

I believe that I may have misread your earlier post. I thought your reference to downtown and Ogden was related to living. It would appear that it actually relates to where you will be working.

If I have that correct, I suggest you look at one of the lake communities in the SE. They are Mackenzie Lake, Millrise, Sundance, Chaparral and Auburn Bay. Of these, my favourite is Mackenzie Lake by a long way. There are lots of new communities sprouting up all the time so there may be some others that aren't as well known to me.

Essentially, they have a lake which only residents and their friends may access. The community centre is usually based there and they will have tennis courts, basketball courts, a sledding hill, BBQs etc.

As I said above, the east part of the SE is quite industrial. The further south you go, the less industrial it seems to be.

Another point to note is the flow of traffic. If you are travelling south along Deerfoot in the morning, and north in the afternoon, you will have much less of an issue with rush hour as you will be travelling against the flow.

HTH

ann m

Of the limited area I have seen, I also like Woodbine as a neighbourhood - which is directly west of Ogden, other side of Macleod Trail. Anderson Road would be the (main) route in and out but it's a slightly older neighbourhood and established. Just throwing another idea at you.

To be honest, there are very few bad areas - it might just take a weekend driving around and getting a feel for places.

And yes, I agree with Almost Canadian - Deerfoot and Macleod are not nice.

Little D

There's also Lake Bonavista, which is really well placed between Deerfoot and Macleod Trail.

It's an older, more established lake community, has all the above amenities and has regular buses direct to Anderson LRT.

Danny B

Thank you very much, it did.

Yes you are correct about the job, it will start off downtown and eventually relocate to Ogden.

Not 100% sure I want the job yet, life here in Kamloops is pretty good so I was just trying to gather some more information.

Public transport is definitely the way to go.

Almost Canadian

Correct. In fact that was the one I was thinking of when I referred to Mackenzie Lake. I apologize to the OP

Almost Canadian

Having spent a limited amount of time in Kamloops, I have to admit that I was surprised when you said you were moving to Calgary. All other things being equal, I would rather live in Kamloops.

Public transport in Calgary is not great. The C-Train works wells, but parking can be a major problem, particularly on the south line. If feeder buses do not take you there and back, and if the parking lots are full by the time you wish to park there (the one in Somerset is full to non reserved parking people by 6:10 a.m.) it may not be an option. Again, unless you time the feeder buses to perfection, it can make for a wasted time journey. I would not want to be waiting for feeder buses for 20 minutes in the winter; in fact, I wouldn't want to have to wait for them in the summer either.