[JoeUrban]

This a terrible title but I couldn't think of anything better.
I wanted to start a thread about the Calgary Imagery site (https://maps.calgary.ca/CalgaryImagery/Imagery/) which is a GIS which allows you to overlay 37 different years of airphotos between 1924 and 2022.

It's a super useful tool to see exactly how the city has changed over the past century, to give an idea of when buildings were built or demolished (MyProperty building ages are sometimes suspect for pre WW1 buildings), and how the city's roads and transporation layout has changed.

 

[JoeUrban]

As an example, there used to be a cluster of farms/rural houses up around 6th St and McKnight NE from even before the 1920s
One thing to note is what is now 41 Avenue as shown on the photo was until the 1950s or 60 the part of Edmonton trail where it tilted towards the east to join up with Barlow on the way out of town. So this little village was situated right at the intersection of the railway and one of the highways into Calgary.

1924

1953

But in the 1960s industrial uses started to overrun it and by 1980 all of the houses and even the route of Nose Creek had been erased

1982

 

[Surrealplaces]

That is very cool. It confirms that my memory of confed not having many trees when I was a kid is correct.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Also very cool is that I am finally vindicated ab out something. I've told people for years there used to be a swamp, just NE of Edmonton Trail and 32nd Ave that had a little wooden bridge. There was an old house there and sometimes you would see an older Chinese lady wearing one of those cone shape hats paddling around on a raft in the swamp. Nobody has ever believed me lol.

Pic from 1975

 

[JoeUrban]

Also very cool is that I am finally vindicated ab out something. I've told people for years there used to be a swamp, just NE of Edmonton Trail and 32nd Ave that had a little wooden bridge. There was an old house there and sometimes you would see an older Chinese lady wearing one of those cone shape hats paddling around on a raft in the swamp. Nobody has ever believed me lol.

Pic from 1975
View attachment 517541

Interesting, that pond was the then landlocked curve in Nose Creek that was now bypassed by the straightening of the creek The bridge is from when it was still part of the creek

1966

 

[Surrealplaces]

Here's a video showing part of Nose Hill from 1975 to 2022. You can see a fair bit of tree growth, though I thought it would have been more.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Nose Hill same spot, but from 1999 to 2022

 

[JoeUrban]

I noticed this with Old Banff Coach Road. It has remained largely intact in Springbank, but has been pieced up and reused in a bunch of different ways within the city. And west of Springbank, the original road seems to be gone/grown over.

Then there is the slow train wreck of Victoria Park being swallowed up by the Stampede Grounds. I previously thought it had all kind of happened at once around 2007, but it was already underway by the mid-70s. And I never pieced together that the Corral was on 17 Ave, which you could take all the way to the Elbow River.

(Sorry for continuing the off-topic derail here!)

You can also see similar for Symons Valley Road. It originally took a left off of centre

Most of that right of way is now park except for Bernard Dr

Then a similar thing happens again

Only coming back to the original route past Stoney Trail. It actually kind of irritates me when century+ old long country roads are just developed over with no consideration the history of their route

 

[JoeUrban]

One last one is Beaver Dam Rd

1922/24

It existed as late as 1957

Then development chopped it up, today only small part remains

Much of which has never been paved in it's 100+ year history

Interestingly right where it starts there is a house from the 1940s

 

[CBBarnett]

Only coming back to the original route past Stoney Trail. It actually kind of irritates me when century+ old long country roads are just developed over with no consideration the history of their route

Topography plays a big role in this, but I have always been surprised how "changeable" our original range road system proved to be around Calgary when converting farming to urban land uses. Seems we love to add curves to the skeletal road system and terraform large sections of the ground just to avoid using previously straight lines.

The hilly NW/SW might have some excuses, but even in the SE and NE where the topography is way more forgiving we still couldn't help ourselves take a previously mostly consistent grid and twist it, add curves and random disconnections all over. Compare that to Toronto's sprawl and it's complete different - range roads just slowly upgraded for hundreds of years as they transition to an urban format in almost the exact same location. The major grid that was established long ago remains almost exactly intact.

My best guess is land ownership patterns have a lot to do with this. Ontario's older farming system is made up of many smaller land owners, firmly delineating private lands v. public right-of-way long before redevelopment. Redevelopment therefore is mostly incremental, with the public road grid largely stable as a result of few opportunities to every materially move it. Calgary's massive single owner farm meant there's a great deal of flexibility when a entire section was able to be master planned and developed.

 

[JoeUrban]

Topography plays a big role in this, but I have always been surprised how "changeable" our original range road system proved to be around Calgary when converting farming to urban land uses. Seems we love to add curves to the skeletal road system and terraform large sections of the ground just to avoid using previously straight lines.

The hilly NW/SW might have some excuses, but even in the SE and NE where the topography is way more forgiving we still couldn't help ourselves take a previously mostly consistent grid and twist it, add curves and random disconnections all over. Compare that to Toronto's sprawl and it's complete different - range roads just slowly upgraded for hundreds of years as they transition to an urban format in almost the exact same location. The major grid that was established long ago remains almost exactly intact.

My best guess is land ownership patterns have a lot to do with this. Ontario's older farming system is made up of many smaller land owners, firmly delineating private lands v. public right-of-way long before redevelopment. Redevelopment therefore is mostly incremental, with the public road grid largely stable as a result of few opportunities to every materially move it. Calgary's massive single owner farm meant there's a great deal of flexibility when a entire section was able to be master planned and developed.

Yeah whenever I discuss this I think of Yonge st and how it leads 50+ kms through Toronto and then as a highway in more or less a straight line whereas Calgary only let Centre st go 10 kms before messing it all up.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Living in Greenview as a kid I remember that whole area well. I remember when 50th ave a dirt path, but people drove on it to get to Deeroot lol. the parcel to the left of it had an abandoned house on it that we used to play in. Some older kids accidentally burned it down.

I remember this house and the one across the street actually having people living in them. Crazy times!