By Tim Schaefer, Sunnyside Resident
One of the great things Calgary has to offer are recreational pathways! Whether you walk or pedal, use them for exercise or for commuting, these pathways offer a great opportunity to be actively mobile outside!
For those goal setters out there, did you know there is a way to track the progress you’ve made completing all of the pathways in Calgary’s network? If you are a member of Strava (Freemium GPS activity tracking service) you can sync your membership with the website yycpathways.ca to view your progress.
Here’s how it works: Once you’ve connected your Strava to yycpathways.ca, a comparison analysis matches up the activity you’ve captured in Strava against the yycpathways database. From there yycpathways provides a progress report on how much of Calgary's pathways you’ve completed.
Here’s what reporting the site provides: First there is an overall completion in terms of kilometers and percentage of pathways completed. Next from a visual perspective, there is a map view (see image) that shows what you’ve completed and what is still on your to-do list. Finally for the real competitors out there, the site provides a Leaderboard that shows how you’re doing in comparison to other people with an overall ranking score.
Map of Calgary’s pathways on yycpathways.ca
As of May 1, 2022, there were 1,230.7km of pathways listed in the yycpathways site. This total number will change over time as new pathways are added to the site. For example in January 2022, pathways in Fish Creek Provincial Park were added. These weren’t new pathways, just new to yycpathways. Also note that yycpathways only includes recreational pathways. It does not include dedicated bike lanes found on Calgary streets such as on 5 Ave, 9A St or 10 St NW, at least not yet.
Has anyone out there completed all the pathways? No, but there are a few who have come pretty close! As of May 1, 2022 there were five people who have completed more than 90% of the pathways listed on yycpathways with the highest person sitting at over 99%.
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