Zolo (national online real estate brokerage) report: Top Canadian cities for alternative transportation 

Spoiler alert: Winnipeg ranks 22nd

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Calgary Herald: The bike path factor: active transport of growing importance for homebuyers

Author of the article:
Joel Schlesinger  •  for the Calgary Herald
Publishing date:
Nov 13, 2020  

https://calgaryherald.com/life/homes/new-homes/the-bike-path-factor-active-transport-of-growing-importance-for-homebuyers

Living in communities with plenty of opportunity for active transport — bike trails, transit and walking paths — are viewed as increasingly desirable, a new study shows.

Yet the report on the top Canadian cities for alternative transportation painted Calgary in a rather unfavourable light, ranking it near the bottom of the 100 urban centres surveyed.

“We were examining how communities may be more desirable because they offer transport accessibility outside of using your car,” says Romana King, director of content with Zolo, a national online real estate brokerage, which published the study late last month.

In this respect Calgary ranked 79th with a negative score for alternative transport. The score is compiled using a variety of metrics, such as elevation change, precipitation, along with the quality of bicycle and walking paths, and mass transit.

Montreal and Ottawa ranked No. 1 and 2 in the study, with Edmonton in 36th place.

King says Calgary’s ranking — while interesting — is not a damning indictment of its active transport opportunities. “Larger urban areas are always going to outshine smaller ones because they have larger public purses to build more infrastructure,” she says, adding Calgary has the fourth largest population among Canadian cities.

Zolo included several other factors to balance large cities, which typically have rail transit and extensive bike lanes and paths, with smaller centres like Okotoks and Cochrane, which ranked 33rd and 34th respectively.

The elevation change metric no doubt hampers Calgary’s score, she adds, given it is hilly making riding a bike to work more challenging, for example.

King further notes the study examined alternative transport because of its growing importance to buyers.

On that point, realtor Tim Jones agrees.

“Being active is important to Calgarians in general,” says the broker/owner of Re/Max Prime in Calgary. “Proximity to bike paths, walking paths, parks and green space all have a positive effect on the value and saleability of homes in the Calgary region.”

He further notes in the last few months, because of COVID-19, that properties located near pathways and parks are especially seeing higher demand from buyers.

But being near public transportation is less of a concern among buyers. Jones says this demand trend could also be a result of the pandemic with more people working from home.

“Both large and small organizations have been forced to have staff work from home this year, resulting in many cost saving benefits” for people, such as lower gasoline and parking costs.

Consequently the focus for buyers is more on communities with active transport options that are recreational as opposed to those offering alternatives to commuting to work by car.

Still, King suggests the study reflects that when people are looking for a home, considerations like proximity to these amenities can be just as important as what’s inside the home.

“When people are looking for a home, quite often what they want is something that is going to satisfy their budget, but they also look for things like being close to a school, close to work or easy access to grocery stores,” King says.

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Edmonton Journal: Alternative transport study ranks Edmonton ahead of most big Canadian cities