Well we've seen our fair share of people move to Airdrie from British Columbia over the past year or two. Now that many have been here for a while, I wanted to find out what they didn't like about living here. I spoke to some past clients of mine, as well as took to some online groups to find out and these were the most commons responses I received.
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1. COLD WEATHER
This one is something I was expecting, but people don't like the freezing weather we can get here in the winter. It can get down to -30 degrees celsius, even -40 cold, so you want to make sure you're prepared for those kind of temperatures. Thankfully, around Calgary and Airdrie we do get chinooks, which help warm things up and give some breaks throughout the season. Every year, we usually get one or two really cold spells for a week or so, before moving to more typical winter temperatures of 0 degrees celsius to about -10ish. Last year was somewhat of an exception though, with -30 holding strong for 3 weeks straight.
2. LESS LAKES & GREENERY
People miss having easy access to as many bodies of water and the abundant nature that you get in British Columbia. In BC there's tons of lakes around, often just a short drive from home and with reasonably warm swimmable water. Although we do have lakes here in Alberta, you might have a longer drive to get to them and they'll be colder for swimming.
That being said, there are options for towns/cities that put you closer to a lake if that's something that's important to you. For example, the lake city of Chestermere could be a good option or one of the various lake communities within Calgary for fishing and swimming. Unfortunately, Airdrie does not have any lake communities or great swimmable water around us for the time being.
3. NO CITY TO CITY PUBLIC TRANSIT
Another thing that was mentioned, was that people don't like not having a great public transit option from Airdrie to Calgary. In the greater Vancouver area especially, you have the Sky Train that goes to many of the neighbouring cities. In Calgary there is the C-Train, but that stays within the city and nothing extends to connect Airdrie. There is the Airdrie ICE bus system, but that takes you to directly and only to downtown and of course there are taxi services or Uber, just no real train system.
One reason for not having a train to connect Airdrie to the bigger city is that traffic is not nearly as bad here as it is in the GVA. So, it's not as important to have a city to city transit, but it was something that was brought up.
4. HARD WATER
This was mentioned from past clients of mine from both Calgary and Airdrie. People are having a hard time adjusting to the hard water here compared to what they're used to. Most of us in Alberta have no problem drinking the tap water or using it for everything in general, but some don't think it tastes as good. The obvious solution is to get a water softener installed in your home if you prefer the soft BC water.
5. SNOW PLOWING SYSTEM
Many have been less than impressed with our snow plowing system here so far, feeling like more could be done. This is true, more plowing could always be done. I think we simply get more snow than a lot of places in BC and therefore it becomes more of a priority to stick to the main highways and roads, and somewhat neglect those residential streets.
The best thing you can do here is get yourself a good set of winter tires and be prepared to drive in the snow.
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- Brad Walker
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