DraftCalgary · 2026 tax year · numbers not finalMethods

The math doesn't work

Calgary needs $54 billion of infrastructure over the next ten years, but has funded only half of it. That leaves us with a $27 billion shortfall.

Here we explore just one piece of that budget: the roads. Funding the City's option to put half of roads in good condition would use up most of the mobility budget just on road repair, before addressing a single sidewalk, streetlight or bike lane.

Spending more on roads is necessary, but it is not a solution. Most of our neighbourhoods do not raise enough tax to pay for the roads they already have. The lasting way out, without ever-higher taxes or crumbling streets, is more households and businesses on the roads we already have.

Sources: City of Calgary, 10-year Capital Infrastructure Plan, May 2026, p. 2 · Report to Executive Committee EC2026-0159, p. 2 · Strong Towns Calgary, "Calgary, we are in a predicament"

Choose a pavement plan

Where roads alone use up the area's mobility budget

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Every plan side by side

What each pavement plan costs, and how much of the mobility budget it leaves for everything else. Select a plan to show it on the map.

So what can we do?

More homes and businesses per street means roads that pay for themselves

Cents of every property tax dollar this plan needs for roads, by type of neighbourhood. The black line is the mobility budget's share. Parks, undeveloped land and special districts such as the airport are left out.

By ward

Each ward's hexagons added up under this plan. A hexagon belongs to the ward its centre falls in, so the outlines on the map follow the hexagon grid, not the exact legal boundary. Select a ward to zoom to it.

Full methods

The formulas, data sources and assumptions behind every number are on the methods page.

What is counted

Road pavement only. The mobility budget also pays for , and the city budget pays for pipes, transit, parks, police and much more.

Revenue

The 2026 assessment roll times the 2026 municipal tax rates. Hospitals, schools, parks and other exempt property are removed. Checked against 2025, the same method lands within about 1% of the City's reported total.

Road cost

Citywide budgets are shared out by each area's paved area. Per-square-metre plans use street lengths from OpenStreetMap and widths measured on sampled streets. Main roads everyone uses are pooled citywide.

Median household

The median 2026 assessment of a single residential property, , and the municipal property tax on it.

Mobility budget

Here, the mobility budget means mobility's share of property tax: . That is the City's own breakdown from its property tax calculator, where Mobility is 3.87% of the whole bill, or 6.6% once the provincial share is set aside. Each area is measured against what its own taxes put toward mobility. The City's full Mobility budget is larger ( in 2026) because it also draws on fees, grants and other revenue. We leave those out because property tax is the lever the city and each neighbourhood control.