When do they finally Axe Park N Ride?

[Sliver]

Yeah, using the term Parasite Communities is fun because it riles people up, but it is probably not very productive.

From the other side, it is not helpful to the debate that we haven't had one single member of one of these bedroom communities acknowledge the problem with their lifestyle and the cost it imposes on Calgarians.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by Locke

And yeah, 'it only takes 25 minutes and I get a yard....'

... at 5:00 AM on a Sunday. Sounds like marketing from a developer, to be honest. Not just in these p-p-parasite communities (just came out - sorry) , but a lot of far-flung suburban areas.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Yeah, using the term Parasite Communities is fun because it riles people up, but it is probably not very productive.

From the other side, it is not helpful to the debate that we haven't had one single member of one of these bedroom communities acknowledge the problem with their lifestyle and the cost it imposes on Calgarians.

Yeesh.

Just ask your employer to fire all the people that don't live where you want them to.

Also, I suggest you "eat your own dog food", and never ever use the services of any other locale other than Calgary's.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Yeesh.

Just ask your employer to fire all the people that don't live where you want them to.

Also, I suggest you "eat your own dog food", and never ever use the services of any other locale other than Calgary's.

Again. 5-7 days a week, 8-10 hours a day, 52 weeks a year? Nope. Wouldnt do it because it wouldnt make sense.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Locke

Again. 5-7 days a week, 8-10 hours a day, 52 weeks a year? Nope. Wouldnt do it because it wouldnt make sense.

How much money do you think these people are "sucking"?

If the city of Calgary is falling apart because of some people driving to the city to work, this city is in big trouble.

Obviously these people aren't using all of the city's services:

- Garbage collection
- Water, sewer
- Roads, other than the ones they travel on to and fro work

Jesus, split some more hairs.

Oh yeah, and fata the word "sustainable". It's the biggest BS word of the 21st century.

[Boblobla]

Perhaps some of the Edmontonians here can answer this. Do St. Albert and Sherwood Park get hated on as much for being leeches like Airdrie and Okotoks do?

[algernon]

In the San Francisco Bay area, there are stickers for cars of people who live in the city (for the popular cities, like San Francisco or Berkeley) who can park their car for free and people outside of the city have to pay to park. I also know that the major bridges do have a RFID tag so cars that have already paid can cross the bridge without crossing a toll, and if you try and cheat through, there is a camera to take pictures.

I like Phanuthier's example of the Bay area implementing tolls on people not living in the municipality that they work in. The "problem" with Calgary is geographic, IMO. We have nothing but land surrounding the City, whereas the Bay area has lots of water. There are only certain entrances available by bridge, which makes it easier to control.

The reason I don't mind helping the Townies get defensive is the general attitude I have came across in the Bedroom Communities. I would call it an air of superiority. If they wanted to move out of the big bad City, that's one thing. "Leaving behind the problems" but earning their livelihood here, while continuing to complain about the City is in poor taste, especially since they are taking more out of the infrastructure than they return.

I'm going down to Okotoks
Gonna have myself a time

Friendly faces everywhere
Humble folks without temptation

Going down to High River
Gonna leave my woes behind

Ample parking day or night
People spouting "howdy neighbor"

Heading on up to Airdrie
Gonna see if I can't unwind

So come on down to De Winton
And meet some friends of mine

[algernon]

Originally Posted by Shazam

How much money do you think these people are "sucking"?

If the city of Calgary is falling apart because of some people driving to the city to work, this city is in big trouble.

Obviously these people aren't using all of the city's services:

- Garbage collection
- Water, sewer
- Roads, other than the ones they travel on to and fro work

Jesus, split some more hairs.

Oh yeah, and fata the word "sustainable". It's the biggest BS word of the 21st century.

HAHA! Unless they are wearing diapers and pocketing all of their garbage while here, they are definitely using those services. Oh, and do you think the average Calgarian uses the roads more for commuting or Sunday driving?.

[Shazam]

Oh Lord.

There's enough high and mighty posters on CP that brag about living in the inner city to make up for the townies.

Like somehow buying a box downtown is a huge life accomplishment.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by algernon

HAHA! Unless they are wearing diapers and pocketing all of their garbage while here, they are definitely using those services. Oh, and do you think the average Calgarian uses the roads more for commuting or Sunday driving?.

What, they're taking showers, doing laundry everyday; and leaving out their recyclables and two bags of garbage every week?

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by algernon

I like Phanuthier's example of the Bay area implementing tolls on people not living in the municipality that they work in. The "problem" with Calgary is geographic, IMO. We have nothing but land surrounding the City, whereas the Bay area has lots of water. There are only certain entrances available by bridge, which makes it easier to control.

Well how about general parking stickers? For street parking and city transit, you need a Calgary parking sticker, and those stickers are cheap for Calgarians but expensive for non-residents. Non-residents can purchase parking stickers, but at a much greater cost. These parking stickers have the license plate and car make/model stated on it to prevent black market resales. By enforcing this, people that drive need to inevitably park. Unless they are going to private property where they can park on private property (i.e. a mall, restaurants etc) they make up the cost so as to not burden Calgary residents.

[yads]

Originally Posted by Shazam

What, they're taking showers, doing laundry everyday; and leaving out their recyclables and two bags of garbage every week?

It's not how much services they use, it's how much services they use (>0) in comparison to how much they contribute to the tax base (~0)

[llama64]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Oh Lord.

There's enough high and mighty posters on CP that brag about living in the inner city to make up for the townies.

Like somehow buying a box downtown is a huge life accomplishment.

And buying a box on the edge of the city is better? Personally the thought of having to drive 10 minutes to do basic errands makes my head hurt - would rather walk 2 blocks then ever go near a "power center". I'm not high and mighty, I just have clearly defined preferences.

Transit should change it's service rates to reflect usage zones. Calgary can probably be split into two zones. Just charge a fee to travel between the two zones on top of a basic usage fee.

So a pass to travel around in one zone would be cheaper then a pass that could go between them. Is this concept too advanced for Calgary?

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

Perhaps some of the Edmontonians here can answer this. Do St. Albert and Sherwood Park get hated on as much for being leeches like Airdrie and Okotoks do?

Or any other major city in North America, for that matter.

Calgary is actually the city that's different because we tend to swallow up all of the surrounding bedroom communities (Bowness, Forest Lawn, Ogden, Midnapore, etc were all separate towns at one point).

Most major metro areas are a collection of a bunch of smaller cities wedged together. This is why when you look at a list of cities and their populations, Calgary is usually pretty high on the list, ahead of a lot of cities that are much larger.

According to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_population, Calgary would be the 10th largest city in the US, ahead of San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, and Boston. When the entire "Metro" area is considered, all of those cities dwarf Calgary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_o...tistical_Areas.


So, how do these other large cities deal with the surrounding "leech" cities? Detroit and Buffalo have already been given as examples of cities where the core of the city has basically dried up and almost all of the population (and wealth) lives outside of the actual city, but other cities seem to do relatively well for themselves.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Oh Lord.

There's enough high and mighty posters on CP that brag about living in the inner city to make up for the townies.

Like somehow buying a box downtown is a huge life accomplishment.

Dude, why are you always so angry and bitter about this stuff? I know some of these topics get a little hot sometimes, but trust me, it's not worth it to get riled up (our you'll be counting the gray hairs early, like me).

[valo403]

Originally Posted by getbak

Or any other major city in North America, for that matter.

Calgary is actually the city that's different because we tend to swallow up all of the surrounding bedroom communities (Bowness, Forest Lawn, Ogden, Midnapore, etc were all separate towns at one point).

Most major metro areas are a collection of a bunch of smaller cities wedged together. This is why when you look at a list of cities and their populations, Calgary is usually pretty high on the list, ahead of a lot of cities that are much larger.

According to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_population, Calgary would be the 10th largest city in the US, ahead of San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, and Boston. When the entire "Metro" area is considered, all of those cities dwarf Calgary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_o...tistical_Areas.


So, how do these other large cities deal with the surrounding "leech" cities? Detroit and Buffalo have already been given as examples of cities where the core of the city has basically dried up and almost all of the population (and wealth) lives outside of the actual city, but other cities seem to do relatively well for themselves.

I've only been to Buffalo once, and when I wasn't writing an exam I was blackout drunk after writing an exam, so I can't really say much about it, but I did live in Michigan for over 3 years and spent a decent amount of time in Detroit. The big difference between Detroit and Calgary is that the decay of central Detroit has more to do with the collpase of industry than it does any over usage of city infrastructure by suburban residents. There's simply no economy in Detroit, and hasn't been for years. All of the jobs moved to the suburbs along with the people, save for a few office buildings and scattered smaller scale things. Suburban office parks are pretty common, and outside of the Ren Center the majority of large employers seem to be outside of the city. Commuting from downtown Detroit to Royal Oak, a young professional community about halfway between the city and the real heart of the Oakland county suburbs, is actually pretty easy. The traffic isn't overly heavy on the interstate even at rush hour. However, commuting to other parts of the suburbs can be a massive pain at peak hours as everyone seems to be moving from one suburb to another, as opposed to commuting from the city center. I don't know the history of Detroit well enough to really say whether it was a case of jobs following people out (I suspect it was) or the inverse, but I don't think there's much relationship to any type of 'leeching' by suburban communities.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Locke

I was actually having a similar discussion with me GF, all 3 of her sisters are 'Townies' who live in Airdrie, Okotoks and Irricana and commute to work downtown.

And yeah, 'it only takes 25 minutes and I get a yard....'

IRRICANA!?! 25 minutes, are you kidding me? BS! Haha wow.

Goggle maps has 55-57 minutes, I have a little more faith in that. I wonder how bad it gets door to door in the winter.

EDIT: Oh, and you might want to ask her how she manages 150 km/hour on average. With a stop light or two she has to be hitting 200 plus at some point in her commute.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Dude, why are you always so angry and bitter about this stuff? I know some of these topics get a little hot sometimes, but trust me, it's not worth it to get riled up (our you'll be counting the gray hairs early, like me).

Sounds like those who are riled up about the 'parasites' and 'leeches' should take the same advice...

It's not fair...
It's not equitable...

Guess what... neither is the rest of life!

[Starfishy]

I wish this thread was still about the Park and Ride fee. Oh well!

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by getbak

So, how do these other large cities deal with the surrounding "leech" cities? Detroit and Buffalo have already been given as examples of cities where the core of the city has basically dried up and almost all of the population (and wealth) lives outside of the actual city, but other cities seem to do relatively well for themselves.

I think the difference is, in these metro cities, you have industries and workers in each of these neighbouring cities, so overall you do not have one city leeching more than others. Services are spread throughout. The inflow and outflow is about the same. Calgary is a bit different because you have bedroom communities who are basically a cluster of suburban neighbourhoods and little else.

Like a poster mentioned, to somewhat mitigate for this, Calgarians should really be going more to these neighbouring towns and utilizing some of their services. I think the big thing we as Calgarians can take advantage of are the hospitals and clinics in these bedroom communities since wait times in Calgary are so bad. At least this way we can spread it out a bit more.