Evanston VS The Hills

[PVG-YYC]

Thanks for understanding, I have a strong faith in Calgary's growth for the next 2-3 decades.

http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/DBA/Pages/...ur-Growth.aspx
http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/LUPP/Docum...upply-2014.pdf


+124,000 people in the next 5 years with the current growth pattern... that's a lot. This is just a forecast, numbers might go up more when the Airport expansion is finished.

[freeweed]

Probably closer to 150,000 without even trying. I just don't see Calgary slowing very much until we approach the 2 million point.

We've already seen a massive economic crisis, and we barely blinked. Every year since I've expected a year of "only" 10,000 growth, or something - and every year we triple or quadruple that.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Thanks. I always find it interesting to hear people's stories. A few general questions lead to general advice - but I find the details much more enlightening. This also gives me a very different view on what I'd suggest.

Presuming you're into the longer term investment/rental option, then Evanston is an interesting choice. It'll be a good idea in one sense - there won't be a lot of rental competition for you, at least not compared to Coventry/Harvest. And there's ALWAYS someone wanting to rent in even the newest, most inaccessible location. So I think there's a lot of merit in doing this. And hey, if in 2 years you decide to not live/work downtown... there are worse areas to live in for sure. Other than the DT commute I can't really think of a negative to the area - Stoney gives great transportation access.

And buying new, I completely understand. You can control your finances a lot better, especially in those first few years. And as you said, you have control over so many little details that otherwise require compromise. I absolutely loved being able to pick everything to be the way I wanted, instead of spending the next 5 years making the house my own.

Evanston is going to be great once they get a theatre complex, recreation complex, and BRT (then LRT). Oh wait, they are not getting those.

Sorry, but I'm really not for all the ultra-low density development starting to take over outside the ring road. In the south, some of the far reaches even inside the ring road are really quite the stretch. There should be transit surcharge out there!

Anyway - looks like you were already well locked into Evanston before posing the question. At the individual level, it may still make sense for you. For the first few years it will be difficult not only for transit, but will become worse for road access (which is horrendous even now). More and more people going through that one link to the rest of civilisation. Wow!

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/796...ay-in-and-out/

Calgary’s Evanston neighbourhood: 8,274 people, 1 way in and out

The gridlock is particularly bad during the morning rush hour, Balzer said, and the line of cars can extend as far as a kilometre.

“I’ve heard many people say it can take 20 minutes for them to leave their house and get on Stoney Trail,” he said. “Whereas, you can actually get from Evanston to downtown in 20 minutes if you leave an hour later.”

Those numbers and horrendous reality was last year. Now it is way worse, and as more people come it, it will NOT get any better. It is a large community shaped like a big white ceramic bowl, and then a drain at the bottom that is 1/4" in diameter.

[PVG-YYC]

Yeah I made my choice after my own research.

I admit traffic is going to suck, my work schedule is 7:00-3:30, leaving Evanston around 6 and get back by 4 will avoid most of the traffic. Not every community in the City is equipped with theater, sports complex and BRT/LRT. It's about 10-15 min drive to Cross Iron, Costco, Tuscany/Crowfoot LRT.

It is a new development, it takes time to get things done.

[suburbia]

From evanston's newsletter, looks like the community is pushing hard to get better access, and if you look at the string of bullets pushing for expenditure to get them out of the toilet bowl, it ends with stating the cycle tracks should not be pursued as they are too expensive.

This is the problem with places like Evanston. It isn't a suburb that is thoughtful about the rest of the city. There is always a marked difference between within stoney and outside of stoney. Why buy there if you know there is only one access, and that you'll then have to fight projects of city-wide benefit like cycle tracks so you can get a hand-out?

http://calgaryarea.com/content/commu...newsletter.pdf

At our AGM, our councilor Joe
Magliocca attended. He presented sev
eral issues had been working on within
Evanston and took questions. Below is
the summary:
Joe believes a top issue has been traffic
for Evanston. He has been working to
ease this... <>
•
Joe has been voting against the cycle-
track because he feels it is too expen
sive given the number of cyclists there
are in the city

When you ask the question, how did people like Joe Magliocca get voted in, here is your answer.

Evanston is a perfect example of pain for everyone because the developer did a horrible job of design, and then is pushing the cost of fixing an extremely bad situation on the city's dime via people like "Joe".

BTW - the terror of getting into Evanston is multiplied in winter. The single entry is a long hill, and some people can't get up. Huge issues with buses there also (and the feeder can take 60 minutes just to get to North Pointe on a summer's day - 20min wait + stuck in traffic getting out of the area + 20min ride). One or two vehicles stop on the hill during snow/ice and all comes to a halt - you cannot get to your home. The back way via 144 is impassable often as it is gravel and mud.

http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/evanston-r...sues-1.1458088

With just one road in and out linking it to Calgary – Symons Valley Parkway – the people who live there say it should be named ‘Symons Valley Parking Lot’.
Related Stories

Patty Gibson, a resident of Evanston, says it takes her 15 to 20 minutes just to get out of the neighbourhood.

[speedog]

Okay, so what I don't get is that it doesn't take a very bright person to figure out that access in and out of Evanston has been and is still going to be an issue and as such, why don't people that are buying homes factor this into the equation?

Before we bought the current home that we've been living in for 18 years, we had a number of factors that were key in our decision. It had to be within walking distance of all three levels of public schooling, have easy and relatively close access to secondary schooling, close to parks as well as local shopping. Access to malls was not a concern to us as we don't frequent them.

That said, it would seem that a lot of Evanston residents didn't factor traffic or access in/out of their community very high on their list and now it's become a sore point? Who would have thought that the community was still going to grow and put more pressure on access points? Also, Evanston is what - 5-6 years old and still has no local shops within the community proper (Creekside shopping complex really isn't Evanston), no schools of any kind and by the looks of documentation available on the city's web site (link) will only ever have 3 access points, the existing one on the west side one on the north side to 144th Ave and one on the east side to 14th Street NW which will do no one any good until the stony/14th Street interchange is built.

It's another Tuscany in the making with limited access - kind of like a lot of new communities which people readily buy in and then they bitch about the problems in their community of choice. One has to wonder who's holding the gun to these homeowner's heads forcing them to buy in these communities? I just don't get it.