Short by big-city standards, and much longer than the map suggests if your route crosses one of three or four pinch points.
Calgary commutes are genuinely shorter than in Toronto or Vancouver. The city is spread out but the road network is generous, and most people are not driving an hour each way. Newcomers from larger cities are usually pleasantly surprised.
What determines your commute is not distance, it is whether your route crosses a constrained corridor at the wrong time:
Stoney Trail has genuinely improved cross-city travel around the edges, which is why some outer communities commute better than their distance suggests.
Two homes an equal distance from your office can commute very differently depending on whether the route crosses Deerfoot at peak, whether it uses a bridge, and whether it exits onto a ring road or through residential streets.
Drive the actual route, at the actual time, before you buy. Not a Sunday afternoon — a Tuesday at 7:45am and again at 5:15pm. It is the single most valuable hour of a house search in this city, and almost nobody spends it.
Optimise for whoever travels more often or has the least flexible hours, and let the other drive against traffic where possible. Two mediocre commutes are usually worse than one short and one longer in the easy direction. Where to live for your commute →