Work in Calgary, live outside city
 

For anyone who works within Calgary but lives in a town or community outside the city limits. Looking for peoples opinions and experience on the daily drive to work and back and how bad it is. I'm considering the community of Lyalta which is advertised as 35min from downtown, took me 36 min on Sunday but I have no idea about rush hour. How bad is it, am I crazy? :wink:

I don't live outside the city, but I am a driver in the city and I pass through all the major arteries on the outskirts of the city, and so i'm assuming you will be using Hwy 1/16th Ave NE to enter the city...it reallly depends on two things. Time and weather. If you enter during rush hour you may be waiting a while longer than you did on Sunday and when bad weather strikes, there are traffic jams everywhere! I guess you need to weigh the pros/cons to living in Lyalta b/c traffic can and will vary day to day. At least you're not on the South end which is even worse than the NE end! lol

You're crazy!!!! :lol: :lol: :rofl: :lol: :rofl:

I know a lot of people who dont mind commutes from outside if the city (chestermere, okotokes, airdrie, strathmore, etc). If you are one of those people that dont mind sitting in their cars for a while then you should be fine :). Every Calgarian knows that our poor roads were not designed for the types of traffic that we are seeing theses days. It is tough enough just getting around the city :(. I guess I'm spoiled as I'm probably one of the few calgarians whom have been here since the 80s.

.. Did I mention you were crazy? :rofl:

Would your employer allow you to work different hours? I once made arrangements to work 6:00 am to 2:30 pm. I used to miss a lot of the traffic that way. This is in Edmonton though, I don't beleive our road systems are any better.

Yeah I have flexible hours. If the drive takes 45min I would leave the house at 6am and be home by 4pm. The morning drive I would probably enjoy, I find morning driving to be relaxing and good way to prepare for the day (believe it or not) driving home however will probably not be as pleasant but I believe the other benefits will out weigh this greatly.

I'm just uncertain on how long it will actually take to drive to and from work. Also the newer communities here "in" the city don't really offer a much better commute IMO/E. Inner city houses are out for me so I'm left with either a really nice place outside of town or a cookie cutter in a newer community.

well I was born and raised here in calgary and I never understand why people would live outside calgary and commute every day.

1. Traffic always is hit or miss even if you live in the city
2. Does the Lower of the price of a house really matter when you end up spending the extra on gas anyways?

Not to mention higher property taxes etc.

I have never seen the point it and for me why would I want to live another 20-30min out of town when it already can take upwards of an hour to get home when the bad weather hits. (even though its only a 10min drive normally)

IMO if you can swing it for 6am-4pm, you're just missing the heavy traffic both ways, coming in, and going home.

+1 on what most people said though, very time and weather dependent.

We live in Water Valley and work in sw Calgary. Our commute is 1 1/4 - 1-1/2 hr each way. We basically traded what we were paying in taxes for vehicle costs.
If you have busy schedules with kids, that could be a challenge.
We've been doing it for 4 years now and love out country lifestyle/property way too much to go back.
It's not for everybody.
It's best if you have a flexible schedule, but during good weather our driving times are always within 5 or 10 minutes accuracy.

Mitch

That time is pretty much in par with what google map gives, so I'm hoping the same is true for myself. What times during the day do you make the commute?

I'm going to drive to my potential new property from work on Wednesday and see exactly how long it takes. I'm OK with the fact some days will suck, my work is flexible and on bad weather days people come in late and leave early.

I used to live in Airdrie and the commute to work to barlow trail wasnt bad 30-40mins. But what killed me was all my friends and family lived in Calgary. So after work if I wanted to go out and do whatever, I would have to stay in calgary till I was ready to go home. So technically I lived in Calgary, but only went home to Airdrie to sleep. If you wanted to go home and rest for a few hrs it wasnt worth it to drive in to work, drive home, drive back in to play, then drive back home to sleep.

Very inconvienient for me.
Not bad if you actually plan to "live + play" where your house is.

We can leave between 5:30 and 8:30 depending on what day it is.
5:30 is great because it's always clear sailing, 8:30 is alright except when you hit the city because that's when some people that purposely avoid rush hour venture out and they are not always the best drivers.
(get in one lane and stay there, leave their turn signal going and going, tunnel vision, below speed limit...)

Mitch

Haha, I know the type. Thanks for your comments.

That's my plan if all works out, we have really good friends moving to the same community and family can come to us but there's not a whole lot of family in Calgary anyway and we hardly see them.

when I lived past Strathmore it would take me about an 45 to get into downtown....but that was with me...um, going a tad faster than the posted speed. Even during crazy winter storms it only took about 30 minutes for me to get from my house to the city...

Good news as Strathmore is close to the same distance and I'll be using the same roads, although I think I might take it a little slower in the winter :surprise:

Yeah but where do you live and have you bought a house or looked into buying recently? To get anything decent for your money you're looking at either far north like Country Hills, Far South like Cranston, or Far west like Valley Ridge although Valley Ridge isn't exactly that cheap either. These are the places you get the most for your money and yet you're still stuck with a smaller lot on a cramped street. You sacrifice privacy, architecture, and space and for what? The commute still sucks, from Country Hills to my work it's 45min, far south around 30 min to get to work but 45min to get back home. The west isn't much better and can be worse depending on traffic.

Outside the city I get way more for my money (almost double), a nicer and quite community, security, more social environment, better view, more space inside and out, and over all more freedom. And it'll still likely take 45min. The property tax is lower, not higher and 45min on the highway is less gas than 45min in the city.

I think the key is WHY. As others have said, if you Live and Play outside the city then it's one thing, but if you're only going for the cheaper housing then you have to consider that the increased vehicle costs REALLY add up.

I just moved from a smaller community outside of Red Deer to right inside town. My daily Kilometer Toll went from 110 to 6. I don't care that the mileage goes to crap in town, I'm doing less than 5% of the Kilometers, factor in Oil changes, useful life of the car etc. and it doesn't take long to rack up considerable $$$.

A couple of things I'm loving... if I need groceries, want to go to a movie, etc. I don't have to book an hour plus for travel (round trip). + Small town amenities suck. You get a lot more in terms of public works in city vs a small town.

Keep in mind too, that while the extra dollars you would spend on housing in Calgary may seem like a lot right now... you'll get that back when you sell the house. Money spent on fuel and vehicle maintenance simply disappears.

Make sure you're comparing apples to apples with your commute. If you can leave for work early and get home early, you'll still be there sooner if you live closer. Don't make the mistake of comparing a Sunday drive out of town to a hectic rush hour logjam to a Calgary house. Plus make sure it's right to the road you would like to buy on, not to the off-ramp.

One thing to consider might be to buy a place in Calgary, and rent it out while You rent in the small town you're thinking of. This way you get to buy now while the market is down and you SHOULD be able to rent it out for more than a similar place in a small town rents for. If you decide after renting for a while that you really like the small town life and commute... sell the Calgary house and buy in your small town. But if you don't like small town life after a year then at least you're not stuck with a hard to sell house in a little town (which is exactly where my brother in law is)

Just my 2 cents, good luck!

Why? I say why not? City life isn’t exactly great, we currently rent inner city and our commute to work is great, takes me 10-15min. However it’s noisy, expensive and fairly dangerous. Last night for example someone shot up the KFC across the street: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Sh...megadrop_story
The outskirt communities aren’t always much better, buddy lives in Bridlewood and 6 cars on his street were broken into recently in one night. I’d rather raise kids in a quite secure community.

In Calgary it’s pretty hard to live 6 minutes from where you work and even harder to accomplish this when I work SE and the wife works in Airdrie. Like I mentioned from what I know so far the commute time may be very comparable to that of newer communities within the city. There are plenty of people I work with who live within the city but still drive 45min on an average day and close to 2 hours on days like last week. The extra kilometers will not add up to significant maintenance costs on our vehicles as they are cheap to maintain as it is. If I lived in Country hills for example I would still have to drive 50km per day for work, in Lyalta it would be 100km per day which is 13000km a year or half an oil change on my car ($50). Things like brakes will actually last longer and other parts will also be less stressed from eliminating most of the start and stopping you find within the daily city drive.

In addition a gas station and grocery store is being built in the community as well as a restaurant or two. Strathmore is 10min away for most things so when we do need to go into the city we’ll just make a day of it.

I get the trying things out first idea but it’s not really possible. I would never buy a house in the city right now if there was even a slightest chance of us not making a long term home of it. House prices aren’t exactly going up and with all the houses currently on the market it’s difficult to sell and after realtor and lawyer fees I’d loose my shirt. You also can’t rent in the community.

Honestly I love everything I can think of about living in this community, I’m just concerned about the daily drive to work, specifically in the winter. Before we put the offer in I’m going to make the drive during typical commute times and see exactly how it is.

Thanks all for the feedback.

Time to start engineering that transporter steve.

What do you currently drive Steve btw? That can make a big difference too. :biggrin:

Only if you test it first.

One of the guys I work with built out in Dalroy which is not far from Lyalta. Think it takes him about 25 minutes to get to work (we don't work downtown). On really bad traffic days he just works from home or takes a sick day or whatever but 99% of the time it's fine.

It's workable out east if you don't mind flat, windy, and saltyish dirt .. but on the flipside, a mere mortal stands a chance of buying property out that way compared to anything west or south. I actually looked at building too out that way, would love to be able to build a greenhouse or park my assortment of summer toys somewhere .... only problem is I'm not moving out of the house I'm in now unless it's a chance to flee Calgary and Alberta altogether. Man I hate the thought of moving!!!!!

One thing to consider out that way though is check into the proximity of sour gas wells out that way. I'm not sure if it's as big an issue as it was in the past (I imagine a lot of them are just shut in right now anyhow) or in what areas specifically where they are ... just a passing thought though of something you might want to check into further before deciding on anything.

Good luck man. I can't imagine trying to buy a house nowadays. I got into mine in the nick of time - there's no way I could afford my own house if it were on the market today. Not without a 99 year amortization !!

We house sat for a week in the area we originally considered purchasing in, and the commute sealed the deal for us. The cost of both of us having a vehicle, combined with higher insurance, maintenance, and earlier burn out, just wasn't worth it. Also if you drive into town, but take transit into the core, you can also add that cost into your monthly fees. At the time we were looking, 2008 we had a car that was extremely reasonable on gas; we were filling up every 5 days.

My sister in law lives in the little community we were considering. She never comes out to social activities unless is a very special occasion. They always want guests to come out there, but nobody wants to make the commute. She frequently complains about how she forgot to buy X, Y, or Z while she was last in town and then has to pay the inflated cost at the local corner/grocery store. Also they've now written off two cars in 4 years due to road conditions; spin outs, animal encounters, etc. Essentially her home cut her off from everyone.

In the summer my commute from home (inner city) to work (downtown) is 15 minutes, tonight it was 45 minutes, and on both Monday and Tuesday of last week it was well over an hour. I have multiple routes I can take, and they were all bad.

I am not a fan of cookie cutter houses, and so we took a bit of a different approach to buying a home. We purposefully sought out the ugliest/worst house in the best neighbourhood we could afford. We purchased our house at around 50% of the cost our two neighbours paid (they moved in 3-6 months after we did). Yes, there was a lot of work, but the bulk of it was/is cosmetic. We did have to wait, we viewed numerous properties, but in the end we ended up with a charming little 1950s home that required landscaping, paint, new appliances, and updated light fixtures.

It usually only took me 22 minutes to get to work ( downtown) but on snowing day, I just stay home because i know it will take me over an hour to get to work so I can't imagine how long would it take for those who live outside of the city.

I live in Airdrie and drive in every day down to the Foothills industrial area.. takes me 25-30mins (I'd rather not get into snow/blizzard days.. haha) Drive is fine for me, as I work 10-630pm, so most of the rush hour traffic is gone by those times on my route (Deerfoot or Stoney Trail, depending on the day).