Work in Calgary, live outside city

[Magma]

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)

[365seasons]

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.

[MitchM]

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

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by MitchM

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.

[Phanman]

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.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Phanman

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

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.

[Rbacchiega]

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...

[JDigital]

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).

[MitchM]

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

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by MitchM

(get in one lane and stay there, leave their turn signal going and going, tunnel vision, below speed limit...)

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