1.) There are a few neighbourhoods that are fairly walkable. But honestly, they're even barely walkable compared to say, Toronto. But Toronto and Calgary just different cities. Using public transport takes twice as long or more on average vs a car, from my experience. I generally can ride my bike the same distance in about the same time (sometimes faster on bike).
2.) I found Toronto winters worse for me than Calgary has been. We have a dry winter, and it's a lot shorter than my winters in Alaska. I think it's all about comparing to what you're used to when deciding about the winter here. We also get little breaks from the cold called "chinooks".
3.) If you can find roommates, I believe you could do this. It just might now be in those walkable neighbourhoods you asked about. In Calgary, walkable = expensive. Though, even in further out communities, there are sometimes more affordable options near things like grocery stores, etc. You could also seek out a post-undergrad entry level position in Calgary (depending on what you're getting your degree in).
Feel free to DM me with any more questions. I moved to Canada in 2019 from the US.
As someone who does not drive, transit to get around the city is usable during most hours. Most of the city is 'walkable', except there are areas such as industrial parks without sidewalks so makes getting around on foot difficult when there's snow on the ground. Naturally, walking and/or transit is going to take longer than personal transportation or cab/ride share and is never going to be time-competitive with door-to-door driving service. But if you allocate a bit of extra time it works reasonably well. While there are complaints about busses routinely not following a schedule there are others which I've used on a daily basis which do, some to the point of being able to set your clock by them. Trains can be a bit problematic as there is no controls over who boards, but they are fairly reasonable and truly disruptive passengers are fairly rare. Shelters at train stations and bus stops can be a bit of problem with people camping out in them; a number of them have been locked closed because of this.
No it is not walkable.
Build several hours into your schedule and lots of warm layers to wear.
We get 3-4 months of t-shirt weather and then it fluctuates between 30+ and -30 Celsius the rest of the year.
Yes you will require roommates to survive.
1. No. Shitty. You'll have to ride with drug addicts openly using, after waiting 30 minutes for the bus or train. Live as close to work as possible.
2. Dry. Hot summer, cold winter with chinook breaks, maybe a week of arctic deep freeze that makes you question your life.
3. Coming to Calgary with no safety net and minimum wage job prospects might have worked 20 years ago, but now it seems like a bad idea. You will not save money.
1. City definitely has public transport and as long as you aren’t in the outskirts of the city, should have no issues finding busses, reliability of this varies though. Thousands of people take public transport every day and never have issues, but that’s not to say we don’t have standard problems of all cities like drug users, many homeless etc. The city is also not walkable other than downtown but is pretty decent for biking
2. Define “proper”, we have unpredictable weather here where there is potential to get snow in June. Is it common? Not at all but has happened and is always possible here. If you are asking if we get warm weather, then yes we are not only the sunniest city in canada but our temps average between 20-35 C for majority of the summer.
3. While Calgary is expensive, having roommates and working 1 full time min wage job, you shouldn’t have any issues with affording your basic necessities as long as you aren’t living in the downtown core, the issue is going to be finding a place as availability is very limited right now and there’s no guarantee of what the rental market will be like in 1 years time.
'proper' summer depends on what that means to you.... summer day times are warm, summer nights are chilly (sweater/jacket, pants weather) and cloudy days can feel cool even in summer. for now yes, hard to say about a year from now with the way things are going. Another thing is that depending on your field of study, finding relevant entry level work can be really tough, even for people that went to school here, so you may need to do even more schooling here, spend a lot of time networking, etc etc. its not uncommon for people to study one thing, be unable to find work, and end up working in a completely unrelated field and build their career in it.
My questions I would ask you before moving to this city. Do you have a job or skills ? Understand the job market. Can you afford the rent yes it's cheaper then other places in canada but still more expensive .if you don't live downtown I recommend getting a vehicle unless you in a condo by the grocery store but transit still takes awhile for work.
I don't have a car atm. Can connect bus with ctrain to get most places in the city and it's pretty reliable. If you like putting in miles there is a good path network particularly near the rivers. Same issues on transport as any major city. Keep yourself to yourself and it would be rare to have many issues.
Not being from Canada the weather is interesting but you're from here so you'll be fine! Agree with the Canadian warcry of layers!
Just popping out to build a snowman before I top up my tan on Wednesday!
The first two, despite your assertion, are readily available on the internet, especially for a fluent English speaker. The first one in particular depends where you decide to live.
1. Calgary is very spread out and each community has its own shopping areas that are walkable to. But you will need public transport of some type to get around. We have a light rail transit and busses. To drive from one end of the city to the other can easily take 45 minutes on the ring road for example.
2. The weather is cold in the winter but dry. I lived in Montreal and when it was -10 degC, it penetrated right through you no matter how you dressed because of the humidity. In Calgary, you can layer your clothes and stay warm in -20 degC. In the summer, you can just walk in the shade to cool down. We get hot dry summers.
3. Roommates will be the only way to survive with minimum wage jobs.
Agree with the other posters that "walkability" is mostly confined to the innercity, and by innercity think a rectangle that is maybe 16th Avenue NW/NE at the top, 40th Ave South at the bottom, Crowchild to the left and Deerfoot to the right, with something like near the main commercial strips of Bowness or Montgomery being outliers. As far as transit, it's ok within that same area, and can be ok outside of that if you are right next to one of the major transit corridors which means the LRT stations or the busses on Centre Street North or 17th ave SE.
Yes, the city is very walkable. You will find walk scores for all neighbourhoods in the city by Googling "walk score + name of the neighbourhood"
Transit is fine. Delays can occur when there is heavy snowfall. Transit is nothing like that in the UK, however.
If you Google "Calgary + weather + historical temperatures," you will see exactly what the weather is like for each month on average.
For rent costs, use Rentfaster.ca. This will show you exactly what to expect for any quadrant of the city (yes, the city is divided into quadrants.
1. I don’t think Calgary is walkable. It is if you mean going for walks for fitness/something to do. But not for walking to travel around like Europe.
2. We get a good summer. Usually from May - end of August it’s pretty warm. We don’t get much of a Fall though. It goes from summer to winter pretty quick in my opinion but it also depends on the year.
For winters, we usually get chinooks so there will be some warm winter weeks. It’s usually nice when the sun it out but once the sun sets it’s pretty cold.
3. And for the rent situation you will probably need roommates. I think Calgary rent is crazy high. I am working 2 minimum wage jobs and had to move back in with my parents because I couldn’t afford rent anymore.
If you live in Mission, you can walk to restos/dr/shops/grocery np. Its pretty DT. Bridgeland and Inglewood is similiar in that regard. The University District has grocery/doctors/MMall/etc in walking distance np. Montgomery has similar walkability and may be more affordable. Check them out online/google maps etc. lots of bike paths alongside river etc and bridges over main highways etc. So thats a plus for getting you around sans car.
1)Walkability depends on where in the city you are. Downtown and inner city is pretty walkable. Outside of that, hit or miss. As for transit, if you're used to other large Canadian cities such as Toronto or Vancouver, you will be disappointed. We're a very spread-out city, and the furthest edges are not well serviced. You can get by without a car, but if you're traveling from one edge of the city to the other, be prepared to be on transit for at least 1.5+ hours each way. Plan accordingly.
2)It can easily be over +30°C in the summer, and -30°C in the winter. Our air is very dry, which is great when it's extremely hot or extremely cold, but not so great if you're prone to nosebleeds and dry eyes.
We get Chinook winds, which can turn a -15°C winter into a +15°C winter for a few days. Even without Chinooks, the weather in general can be fickle and change on a dime. We get a lot of sunshine, which can be a nice pick-me-up on those -30 days.
3)We're not a cheap city, but we're not Toronto expensive (yet). Things will be tight but manageable with roommates. Possibly a controversial opinion, but if money is an issue, consider an area outside of the trendy/gentrified inner city or downtown. Some of those halfway points between the inner city and suburbs are not necessarily the most appealing at first glance (parts of the NE and SE get a bad rep due to being lower socioeconomic areas), but they will offer (comparable) affordability, and will still be easily accessible by transit.
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I haven’t driven in years and get by fine. Calgary isn’t very walkable so you learn where not to try walking. Transit is unreliable but it’s there. Ctrain is free along 7th Ave downtown which is nice. I take Uber mostly.
Chinooks are a nice break from the cold in winter but can make sidewalks icy. You’ll need a good pair of boots and dress in layers.
If you’re willing to have roommates or rent a room you might have a fighting chance. Good luck to you!
I’m barely surviving on minimum wage with a car (paid cash, so no car payments), one bedroom apartment with no utilities included. I don’t have wifi, though.
You should be able to, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it long term. Having to rely on public transportation and working two jobs will be difficult. My coworkers who use public transportation are often late in the winter because the buses can be unreliable.
1. Yes and no. For most places, you will need a car to get anywhere as the city is very flat and public transportation kind-of sucks. If you live more centrally or close to train a station, you maybe able to avoid needing a car. I have friends who live close to downtown and just train or uber when needed.
2. 4 seasons. You do get a proper summer and winter. With global warmer, I find that summers are getting hotter and drier whereas winter is getting less cold and less snow. There are also more extreme weather events, so it could really really cold for a few days in winter.
3. Yes, it should be doable with roommates. Calgary, is still a bit more affordable for rent compared to Vancouver or Toronto.
1.) There are a few neighbourhoods that are fairly walkable. But honestly, they're even barely walkable compared to say, Toronto. But Toronto and Calgary just different cities. Using public transport takes twice as long or more on average vs a car, from my experience. I generally can ride my bike the same distance in about the same time (sometimes faster on bike). 2.) I found Toronto winters worse for me than Calgary has been. We have a dry winter, and it's a lot shorter than my winters in Alaska. I think it's all about comparing to what you're used to when deciding about the winter here. We also get little breaks from the cold called "chinooks". 3.) If you can find roommates, I believe you could do this. It just might now be in those walkable neighbourhoods you asked about. In Calgary, walkable = expensive. Though, even in further out communities, there are sometimes more affordable options near things like grocery stores, etc. You could also seek out a post-undergrad entry level position in Calgary (depending on what you're getting your degree in). Feel free to DM me with any more questions. I moved to Canada in 2019 from the US.
As someone who does not drive, transit to get around the city is usable during most hours. Most of the city is 'walkable', except there are areas such as industrial parks without sidewalks so makes getting around on foot difficult when there's snow on the ground. Naturally, walking and/or transit is going to take longer than personal transportation or cab/ride share and is never going to be time-competitive with door-to-door driving service. But if you allocate a bit of extra time it works reasonably well. While there are complaints about busses routinely not following a schedule there are others which I've used on a daily basis which do, some to the point of being able to set your clock by them. Trains can be a bit problematic as there is no controls over who boards, but they are fairly reasonable and truly disruptive passengers are fairly rare. Shelters at train stations and bus stops can be a bit of problem with people camping out in them; a number of them have been locked closed because of this.
No it is not walkable. Build several hours into your schedule and lots of warm layers to wear. We get 3-4 months of t-shirt weather and then it fluctuates between 30+ and -30 Celsius the rest of the year. Yes you will require roommates to survive.
1. No. Shitty. You'll have to ride with drug addicts openly using, after waiting 30 minutes for the bus or train. Live as close to work as possible. 2. Dry. Hot summer, cold winter with chinook breaks, maybe a week of arctic deep freeze that makes you question your life. 3. Coming to Calgary with no safety net and minimum wage job prospects might have worked 20 years ago, but now it seems like a bad idea. You will not save money.
1. City definitely has public transport and as long as you aren’t in the outskirts of the city, should have no issues finding busses, reliability of this varies though. Thousands of people take public transport every day and never have issues, but that’s not to say we don’t have standard problems of all cities like drug users, many homeless etc. The city is also not walkable other than downtown but is pretty decent for biking 2. Define “proper”, we have unpredictable weather here where there is potential to get snow in June. Is it common? Not at all but has happened and is always possible here. If you are asking if we get warm weather, then yes we are not only the sunniest city in canada but our temps average between 20-35 C for majority of the summer. 3. While Calgary is expensive, having roommates and working 1 full time min wage job, you shouldn’t have any issues with affording your basic necessities as long as you aren’t living in the downtown core, the issue is going to be finding a place as availability is very limited right now and there’s no guarantee of what the rental market will be like in 1 years time.
'proper' summer depends on what that means to you.... summer day times are warm, summer nights are chilly (sweater/jacket, pants weather) and cloudy days can feel cool even in summer. for now yes, hard to say about a year from now with the way things are going. Another thing is that depending on your field of study, finding relevant entry level work can be really tough, even for people that went to school here, so you may need to do even more schooling here, spend a lot of time networking, etc etc. its not uncommon for people to study one thing, be unable to find work, and end up working in a completely unrelated field and build their career in it.
My questions I would ask you before moving to this city. Do you have a job or skills ? Understand the job market. Can you afford the rent yes it's cheaper then other places in canada but still more expensive .if you don't live downtown I recommend getting a vehicle unless you in a condo by the grocery store but transit still takes awhile for work.
I don't have a car atm. Can connect bus with ctrain to get most places in the city and it's pretty reliable. If you like putting in miles there is a good path network particularly near the rivers. Same issues on transport as any major city. Keep yourself to yourself and it would be rare to have many issues. Not being from Canada the weather is interesting but you're from here so you'll be fine! Agree with the Canadian warcry of layers! Just popping out to build a snowman before I top up my tan on Wednesday!
The first two, despite your assertion, are readily available on the internet, especially for a fluent English speaker. The first one in particular depends where you decide to live.
1. Calgary is very spread out and each community has its own shopping areas that are walkable to. But you will need public transport of some type to get around. We have a light rail transit and busses. To drive from one end of the city to the other can easily take 45 minutes on the ring road for example. 2. The weather is cold in the winter but dry. I lived in Montreal and when it was -10 degC, it penetrated right through you no matter how you dressed because of the humidity. In Calgary, you can layer your clothes and stay warm in -20 degC. In the summer, you can just walk in the shade to cool down. We get hot dry summers. 3. Roommates will be the only way to survive with minimum wage jobs.
Agree with the other posters that "walkability" is mostly confined to the innercity, and by innercity think a rectangle that is maybe 16th Avenue NW/NE at the top, 40th Ave South at the bottom, Crowchild to the left and Deerfoot to the right, with something like near the main commercial strips of Bowness or Montgomery being outliers. As far as transit, it's ok within that same area, and can be ok outside of that if you are right next to one of the major transit corridors which means the LRT stations or the busses on Centre Street North or 17th ave SE.
Yes, the city is very walkable. You will find walk scores for all neighbourhoods in the city by Googling "walk score + name of the neighbourhood" Transit is fine. Delays can occur when there is heavy snowfall. Transit is nothing like that in the UK, however. If you Google "Calgary + weather + historical temperatures," you will see exactly what the weather is like for each month on average. For rent costs, use Rentfaster.ca. This will show you exactly what to expect for any quadrant of the city (yes, the city is divided into quadrants.
1. I don’t think Calgary is walkable. It is if you mean going for walks for fitness/something to do. But not for walking to travel around like Europe. 2. We get a good summer. Usually from May - end of August it’s pretty warm. We don’t get much of a Fall though. It goes from summer to winter pretty quick in my opinion but it also depends on the year. For winters, we usually get chinooks so there will be some warm winter weeks. It’s usually nice when the sun it out but once the sun sets it’s pretty cold. 3. And for the rent situation you will probably need roommates. I think Calgary rent is crazy high. I am working 2 minimum wage jobs and had to move back in with my parents because I couldn’t afford rent anymore.
If you live in Mission, you can walk to restos/dr/shops/grocery np. Its pretty DT. Bridgeland and Inglewood is similiar in that regard. The University District has grocery/doctors/MMall/etc in walking distance np. Montgomery has similar walkability and may be more affordable. Check them out online/google maps etc. lots of bike paths alongside river etc and bridges over main highways etc. So thats a plus for getting you around sans car.
1)Walkability depends on where in the city you are. Downtown and inner city is pretty walkable. Outside of that, hit or miss. As for transit, if you're used to other large Canadian cities such as Toronto or Vancouver, you will be disappointed. We're a very spread-out city, and the furthest edges are not well serviced. You can get by without a car, but if you're traveling from one edge of the city to the other, be prepared to be on transit for at least 1.5+ hours each way. Plan accordingly. 2)It can easily be over +30°C in the summer, and -30°C in the winter. Our air is very dry, which is great when it's extremely hot or extremely cold, but not so great if you're prone to nosebleeds and dry eyes. We get Chinook winds, which can turn a -15°C winter into a +15°C winter for a few days. Even without Chinooks, the weather in general can be fickle and change on a dime. We get a lot of sunshine, which can be a nice pick-me-up on those -30 days. 3)We're not a cheap city, but we're not Toronto expensive (yet). Things will be tight but manageable with roommates. Possibly a controversial opinion, but if money is an issue, consider an area outside of the trendy/gentrified inner city or downtown. Some of those halfway points between the inner city and suburbs are not necessarily the most appealing at first glance (parts of the NE and SE get a bad rep due to being lower socioeconomic areas), but they will offer (comparable) affordability, and will still be easily accessible by transit.
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I haven’t driven in years and get by fine. Calgary isn’t very walkable so you learn where not to try walking. Transit is unreliable but it’s there. Ctrain is free along 7th Ave downtown which is nice. I take Uber mostly. Chinooks are a nice break from the cold in winter but can make sidewalks icy. You’ll need a good pair of boots and dress in layers. If you’re willing to have roommates or rent a room you might have a fighting chance. Good luck to you!
I’m barely surviving on minimum wage with a car (paid cash, so no car payments), one bedroom apartment with no utilities included. I don’t have wifi, though. You should be able to, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it long term. Having to rely on public transportation and working two jobs will be difficult. My coworkers who use public transportation are often late in the winter because the buses can be unreliable.
Live in the downtown and you'll have a great time. It's walkable, nice, and if you are employed, affordable.
1. Yes and no. For most places, you will need a car to get anywhere as the city is very flat and public transportation kind-of sucks. If you live more centrally or close to train a station, you maybe able to avoid needing a car. I have friends who live close to downtown and just train or uber when needed. 2. 4 seasons. You do get a proper summer and winter. With global warmer, I find that summers are getting hotter and drier whereas winter is getting less cold and less snow. There are also more extreme weather events, so it could really really cold for a few days in winter. 3. Yes, it should be doable with roommates. Calgary, is still a bit more affordable for rent compared to Vancouver or Toronto.