Calgary Census 2011

Stephen Ave · #1 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 6:49 PM**

I know the full results aren't released yet, but let's start a thread now.

19,500 is a great result IMO. I was expecting the city to increase by ~15k this year.

http://www.calgarycitynews.com/2011/...s-results.html

This is what really stands out to me. Talk about a major turnaround.

Quote:

Net Migration and Natural Increase

Net migration is the difference between the number of persons moving into Calgary and the number moving away. Over the past 12 months, 9,563 more people moved to Calgary than moved away from Calgary. This is a significant increase over 2010 when Calgary experienced a negative net migration with 4,154 more people moving away from Calgary than to Calgary.

Radley77 · #2 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:05 PM**

The full results of the 2011 Calgary Census can be found here (spreadsheets too!):

http://www.calgary.ca/portal/server....11+Results.htm

One of the things I don't understand is why there are so many walkers relative to cyclists. I would think with the larger catchment area and faster travel speeds of a bicycle that you would see more cycling relative to walking. Anyone have any ideas on why this is so?

bigcanuck · #3 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:06 PM**

Full results:
http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/...esult_book.pdf

bigcanuck · #4 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:10 PM**

Can someone explain this? For mode of transportation, 8,622 people indicated they travel to work as the primary driver in a carpool yet only 5,471 people indicated that they are the passenger in a carpool (or taxi). Does that mean there are at least 3,151 carpool drivers who in fact have no passengers?

freeweed · #5 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radley77

One of the things I don't understand is why there are so many walkers relative to cyclists. I would think with the larger catchment area and faster travel speeds of a bicycle that you would see more cycling relative to walking. Anyone have any ideas on why this is so?

Weather. I know plenty of people who walk to work in the downtown year-round. I know extremely few who cycle from November through March or so. Plus you can walk to work in your work clothes, and no need for a shower when you get there.

freeweed · #6 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:37 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigcanuck

Can someone explain this? For mode of transportation, 8,622 people indicated they travel to work as the primary driver in a carpool yet only 5,471 people indicated that they are the passenger in a carpool (or taxi). Does that mean there are at least 3,151 carpool drivers who in fact have no passengers?

I think it highlights how many people lie on these sorts of things to make themselves feel better. That's a huge discrepancy that has no logical answer. The question was only posed to one occupant but still, I find it hard to believe that the census takers somehow managed to find drivers over passengers at an almost 2:1 ratio.

DizzyEdge · #7 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeweed

Weather. I know plenty of people who walk to work in the downtown year-round. I know extremely few who cycle from November through March or so. Plus you can walk to work in your work clothes, and no need for a shower when you get there.

Yep. When I worked downtown I often chose the 45 min walk over a less than 20 min bike ride because of weather, not needing to change, and less chance of death on downtown streets (a fear probably exaggerated).

kora · #8 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radley77

One of the things I don't understand is why there are so many walkers relative to cyclists. I would think with the larger catchment area and faster travel speeds of a bicycle that you would see more cycling relative to walking. Anyone have any ideas on why this is so?

In addition to weather considerations, walking is free. A bicycle costs money and time to buy and maintain. It may not seem like much money or time, but it's not free or hassle-free, like walking always is. Walking is also practically stress free whereas I've experienced horrid bike-rage when cycling, as bad as any car driving road rage. And of course, a lot of people simply feel unsafe using our roads to commute because of the lack of bicycle infrastructure. On the other hand, there are sidewalks practically everywhere.

Chinook Arch · #9 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 7:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigcanuck

Can someone explain this? For mode of transportation, 8,622 people indicated they travel to work as the primary driver in a carpool yet only 5,471 people indicated that they are the passenger in a carpool (or taxi). Does that mean there are at least 3,151 carpool drivers who in fact have no passengers?

Remember that they only ask this question to the people who answered the survey. It doesn't represent every member of each household.

Radley77 · #10 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 9:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kora

In addition to weather considerations, walking is free. A bicycle costs money and time to buy and maintain. It may not seem like much money or time, but it's not free or hassle-free, like walking always is. Walking is also practically stress free whereas I've experienced horrid bike-rage when cycling, as bad as any car driving road rage. And of course, a lot of people simply feel unsafe using our roads to commute because of the lack of bicycle infrastructure. On the other hand, there are sidewalks practically everywhere.

I agree with the point regarding walking being a lot more stress free compared to biking. I find the actual costs pretty small but I guess with walking you don't have to worry about annual maintenance or wearing a helmut or where to find parking or avoiding pedestrians on pathways who aren't following the rules or dangerous corners or finding the right outerwear or unsafe motorists, etc...

I guess one reason why I am more drawn towards cycling is that it is both a bit of a mental calisthenic as well as physical.

Cycling is fast compared to walking and relatively inexpensive, the biggest hurdle and reason why I suspect that people opt for walking over cycling is the intangible factor of how the mind processes these external stresses and how they compensate.

ByeByeBaby · #11 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 9:38 PM**

Quote:

I think it highlights how many people lie on these sorts of things to make themselves feel better. That's a huge discrepancy that has no logical answer.

That's part of it, although I would be more charitable (asking people what they usually do leaves some room for interpretation, which can lead to self-deception).

Part of it is also that some people who are carpooling on the way to work are carpooling with children who are being dropped off at daycare or school, but because the question is only asked of workers, the kids aren't included and appear to be missing.

Quote:

One of the things I don't understand is why there are so many walkers relative to cyclists.

I normally walk, but I rode to work today because I want to bike this evening. I'm only a few blocks away from the office, so it usually takes me around 10 minutes to walk. By the time I got my bike, got it ready to ride, took it onto the road and then at the other end locked it up and removed my bag, that was around 6 minutes of time I don't normally take. So it's actually slower, depending on the lights, for me to ride a bike to the office than it is to walk.

Boris2k7 · #12 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 9:38 PM**

Currently slapping a few maps together... or at least attempting to. I've found out that the City did something aggravating and stupid by putting unnecessary spaces after all the community names, which is making joining tables a bitch.

kora · #13 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 10:06 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radley77

I guess one reason why I am more drawn towards cycling is that it is both a bit of a mental calisthenic as well as physical. Cycling is fast compared to walking and relatively inexpensive

When I lived in Toronto I had a 6 or 7 kilometre commute to work. It was actually a little faster to ride my bicycle compared with taking the subway even though my home and work were both literally within one block of subway stations. Cycling was cheaper than taking the subway and I avoided public transit rush hour crush loads and germs from sick people. And yes, the exercise and good sweat were welcome in the morning and kept me going.

Boris2k7 · #14 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 10:20 PM**

Here's a map I've thrown together showing total pop by community

Hmmm... going to tweak the gray tone for screens with higher brightness... on one of my monitors i can see it fine and on the other it's hard to distinguish.

EDIT: Okay, version 2 up.

freeweed · #15 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 10:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ByeByeBaby

Part of it is also that some people who are carpooling on the way to work are carpooling with children who are being dropped off at daycare or school, but because the question is only asked of workers, the kids aren't included and appear to be missing.

Those kids wouldn't otherwise be driving themselves to daycare. I think calling that "carpooling" is dishonest at best. If people think that's what "carpooling" is supposed to mean, wow - actual carpooling rates are probably nonexistent.

No wonder our downtowns are filled with single occupant vehicles, even though we have carpool initiatives everywhere.

freeweed · #16 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 10:43 PM**

Boris, that map gave me a chuckle. At first glance I thought it was a population density map - and suddenly the suburbs are the most dense, the inner city (with the exception of the core) least dense?

It's really due to the newer neighbourhoods being freaking huge, but still... it's not the kind of graphic we usually see.

Boris2k7 · #17 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 11:00 PM**

Speaking of Pop Density, another map for youz...

Which only really confirms what we already know: that newer suburbs are denser than older ones.

(Except for the ones just starting construction obviously)

And no, I didn't put a scale bar or a north arrow. Because I'm lazy, and I'm not getting paid for these, and because the image program for QGIS is slow as hell.

Cage · #18 Posted **Jul 28, 2011, 11:05 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chinook Arch

Remember that they only ask this question to the people who answered the survey. It doesn't represent every member of each household.

Correct, in the Cage household Mrs Cage drives to work and Mr Cage takes transit. Because the transportation to work question is only asked once per household, Mrs Cage gave the answer of drive to work.

Census and statistics derived from them are only as good as the questions and method of responses.

lubicon · #19 Posted **Jul 29, 2011, 12:30 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen Ave

I know the full results aren't released yet, but let's start a thread now.

19,500 is a great result IMO. I was expecting the city to increase by ~15k this year.

http://www.calgarycitynews.com/2011/...s-results.html

This is what really stands out to me. Talk about a major turnaround.

Growth rate was about 1.8% which I think is pretty typical, and right on the long term average. So not really a huge surprise. Absolute numbers ought to increase year over year as the population increases if the growth rate (% wise) stays the same.

Just looked quickly at my hood (Tuscany). While I am not surprised by the very large number of children under the age of 15, I was shocked to see how few kids there are betwen the ages of 15-18. Maybe that just shows that new areas like Tuscany draw an overabundance of young people who are just starting families. Established familes with older children are either not moving to the far burbs or are staying put in their more established neighborhoods - which probably had similar demographics to Tusany 15 years ago.

Deepstar · #20 Posted **Jul 29, 2011, 12:45 AM**

Even though Panorama Hills is the neighborhood with the highest population, it's encouraging to see the Beltline increase every year despite it's boundaries not changing.

PH will top out in a year or two and then start to go down while the Beltline continues to increase.