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Since 1979 • April-May 2024 • Circulation 5000

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Location, Location, Location

Part One: Transportation

Welcome to the first part of the “Location, Location, Location” series, where we look at one of six aspects of the surroundings that make a house a home. The first area we will cover is transportation, and our case study neighbourhood is McCauley.

When selecting a location you are likely to live in for years, having easy access to other parts of life is not only a desire, but a necessity. As each family is different, there are many questions to consider. Here are some of the questions you may want to ask yourself before picking a neighbourhood, with McCauley as the example.

Where do you need to go?
Before being impressed by the range of transportation available in a selected neighbourhood, it’s important to ask where you really need to go. Do you work in central Edmonton? Do you have a preferred supermarket? Do you have schoolchildren who you would rather drop off, than have them take the bus? McCauley, being only three kilometres from downtown, allows for easy access using both public and private transportation to offices in the city centre. Grocery stores and coffee shops are also easily located, making McCauley a great place to create your base. McCauley is also home to various religious buildings, which allows for various faiths to be close to their places of worship.

How do you get around?
Different groups have different travel needs. Some prefer the convenience and lower price of public transportation, some may prefer the comfort and control of driving to their desired locations, while others want very quick access by walking. These thoughts then lead to other infrastructure-related questions. For example, if you prefer driving, you would also prefer having low rush hour traffic to deal with. If you prefer walking, you may want everything to be within a 15 minute walking distance. Cyclists would also prefer having dedicated bike lanes to reduce collision chances. McCauley does well in all these areas. The short distance to most amenities means that walking is a very viable mode of transportation. Dedicated bike lanes and a variety of roads also means that cyclists can enjoy more cycling space, and car drivers can enjoy low rush hour traffic.

Another consideration here: if you are the entertaining type, is how would others get to you? McCauley has plenty of parking for vehicles, letting friends and family visit easily.

What transportation options are available now and in the future?
With the first two questions answered, you can now match up your needs versus what is available, and also look at ways to compromise if your chosen option is not available. McCauley lends itself well to almost all types of transportation, with bike lanes, low car traffic, and bus stops. McCauley also enjoys very handy access to the LRT, with the Stadium Station located in the northeast of the neighbourhood, and the MacEwan Station located nearby to the southwest (for the Metro Line). Walkscore.com also rates McCauley very highly, with a walk score of 79 against the city average of 64. This, combined with the bike lanes, means not only do you have handy and easy access to your destinations, but that you can also benefit from lowered cost of transportation (which could instead be used to build some extra homes!).

If a neighbourhood does not allow for your preferred mode of transportation, then you can either choose to look at other neghbourhoods, or look at how you can replace your preferred method of transportation. McCauley’s range of options means that this question doesn’t need answering, but it is important to consider how you can get to places if for example no trains run near your neighbourhood.

Conclusion
By looking at your needs and preferences first, and then exploring the available transportation options in your neighbourhood, you can greatly reduce the various neighbourhood options you have available when choosing your home site. McCauley easily rates five out of five due to it having every transportation option, and would mean that you can focus on the other five aspects to be published in future instalments of this series.

Evelina lives in McCauley and is the owner of Evelina Developments, which builds custom, luxury homes in Edmonton.

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