Why is Downtown Calgary out of alignment?

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by TYMSMNY

haha, of course! Only a chinaman would dare to make a joke like that.

Shit, I was going to make the same joke......

But didn't this downtown started 100 years ago? The equipment probably not very accurate.

[Fivewayradio]

The angle of the roads downtown is due to the alignment of the CP Rail line. The line was built before the city existed. There was no need for the line to go perfectly east-west since it was just connecting the shortest distance between two points (the Elbow River and the Shaganappi slopes). The city sprang up after the line was laid and downtown developed around the station, where the calgary tower now stands.

Calgary wasn't even incorporated as a town until 1884, which is right about the time the rail line was built. I can imagine that urban planning wasn't top of mind in what was then just a budding RCMP outpost. In fact it was probably non-existent. At the time 9th avenue would have been a dirt path that paralleled the tracks, slowly growing with use and the growth of the population. Subsequent streets would have responded to that. That kind of organic growth would have continued for a number of years until the civic government instituted a planning policy, which is when you see the alignment correct itself to true NSEW. That appears to have started at 17th ave in the south, which would have been developed in the earliest parts of the boom that started in 1910.

[clem24]

^^^ Way to ruin the thread. I like the slanted explanation more.

Guess the early settlers had the same mentality as our current city leaders.

[A790]

Originally posted by Fivewayradio
The angle of the roads downtown is due to the alignment of the CP Rail line. The line was built before the city existed. There was no need for the line to go perfectly east-west since it was just connecting the shortest distance between two points (the Elbow River and the Shaganappi slopes). The city sprang up after the line was laid and downtown developed around the station, where the calgary tower now stands.

Calgary wasn't even incorporated as a town until 1884, which is right about the time the rail line was built. I can imagine that urban planning wasn't top of mind in what was then just a budding RCMP outpost. In fact it was probably non-existent. At the time 9th avenue would have been a dirt path that paralleled the tracks, slowly growing with use and the growth of the population. Subsequent streets would have responded to that. That kind of organic growth would have continued for a number of years until the civic government instituted a planning policy, which is when you see the alignment correct itself to true NSEW. That appears to have started at 17th ave in the south, which would have been developed in the earliest parts of the boom that started in 1910.

The first logical answer in the thread

[JDMsomething]

its to ad mad style

[Supa Dexta]

Originally posted by Xtrema


Shit, I was going to make the same joke......

But didn't this downtown started 100 years ago? The equipment probably not very accurate.

The whole damn country had been surveyed before 100 yrs ago.. They were pretty damn accurate.