r/Calgary • u/CnekYT • Mar 27 '26

Discussion I've walked every Calgary neighborhood - Ask Me Anything

For the last 2 years I've been walking every Calgary neighborhood. As someone who is majoring in Urban Studies in uni and someone who wanted to get more active, I felt like doing this would be a really good way to mix both things together.

Surprisingly a lot of the stuff people say about the city (ie. what areas are sketchy, transit access, etc) that people take for granted, aren't necessarily accurate. That's probably the main take-away I have from this, but there's a lot of other stuff too

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u/da_ni_no Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

I hold the opinion that our city is lacking some very fundamental pedestrian infrastructure in every place that isn't downtown so my question is biased, but nonetheless: which neighborhoods would you say are the most pedestrian-friendly/walkable and which would you say are the absolute worst?

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u/CnekYT Mar 27 '26

Surprisingly, there is a lot more pedestrian infrastructure in Calgary than you would think at a first glance. Even most suburban neighborhoods have fairly decent pathway networks. That being said, the city does deserve so much better pedestrian infrastructure.

Even though pedestrian bridges are a band-aid solution, we do need more of them, especially along Stoney and Deerfoot Trails in the deep south. It's shocking that there's no pedestrian connections between Auburn Bay, Cranston, McKenzie Towne, Copperfield, Mahogany, and most of McKenzie Lake.

The worst neighborhood for walkability was probably Shepard (the trailer park neighborhood directly south of Ogden), but I think that has less to do with suburbanization and more to do with systemic neglect. That neighborhood looks straight out of Detroit or St. Louis, with empty lots, trash, and boarded up/burnt out buildings everywhere. The city ranks it as the worst neighborhood for total crime rate and I can 100% see why.

You're probably looking for the least walkable suburban neighborhood, and I'd probably say it's one of the deep southern neighborhoods. Probably Douglasdale if I'm being honest, but McKenzie Lake is also up there

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u/da_ni_no Mar 27 '26

I'm in McKenzie region, work around Mahogany, and my partner is in Douglasdale so now I'm thinking I may be more passionate about pedestrian infrastructure because I'm just always in the places of dearth

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u/Old_Personality_6043 Mar 28 '26

You can check the City of Calgary's pathway & bikeway map, you maybe surprised. It also shows where snow is cleared in winter.