Monday, May 19, 2008

GO Bus Square One Mississauga to Toronto Pearson Airport

Mississauga Transit Square One to Pearson International Airport YYZ:
See Miway.ca Schedule. Took this route in June 2011, and mid-day, mid-week, the service was very fast - about 40 minutes. On the return trip a week later, late evening, Sunday, this trip took only 25 minutes, a bargain airport 'shuttle'!

RIP GO to Pearson Airport Route :-( See comments section

Friday, April 2/2010 is the last day that GO operates buses along the route between Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson International Airport and the Square One Terminal at the Mississauga City Centre.

Update December 2009 What's new on GO: note that the service will be hourly as of Jan 2/2010
Trips will leave Square One at 10 minutes past the hour for Pearson, and trips will leave Pearson at 45 minutes past the hour for Square One.


Update November 2009: We've used the GO bus service from Square One to the airport and back multiple times each year since its inauguration. Each trip has taken 15 minutes each way. Hats Off To GO Transit!
Note: To get to Port Credit in Mississauga using GO service, take the train from Union Station (see this blog post for details).

Now back to our regular programming :-)
_____________
Go Transit launched a new airport bus service from Mississauga Square One Shopping Centre to Toronto's Pearson International Airport this month. Today, I sent daughter Jen to try it out, rather than drive her out to the airport to catch her flight this afternoon.

Here's the GO bus leaving for the airport. This view is facing roughly north east.


Although Jen had found the necessary information on the GO Transit site -- the cost ($3.75 CAD one way), the times (every half hour), the travel time (15 minutes) -- we were a little unsure of just where to catch the bus.

The new GO bus terminal is on the north side of Square One, across Rathburn Road from the Mississauga Transit terminal. We drove from Burnhamthorpe Road, north up Duke of York drive (every time a Royal comes to visit, there's a street in this area named for them), turned right (east) on Rathburn, and could see the GO bus sign at the next light about a block away, at a short access road named Station Gate road.

It's perhaps easier to see where to turn (north only; south is buses only into the terminal) if you look for Chapters/Starbucks and Playdium. Take the road that goes between the two.

The photo below shows Station Gate Road at Centre View Drive (Centre View is the road that goes from Mavis Road south of Hwy 403 and north of Rathburn then curves south to intersect with Rathburn).

The Go Bus stop for the airport is Number 6 (six) on the pole. It's the stop furthest from Rathburn (a short block, if that). It's hard to see it beyond the Stop 5 bus shelter, and we missed it. We checked out all the other stops then asked a GO Bus driver where to find it. All the other shelters for all the other stops had posters announcing the new service, but not one of these posters included the Stop number.

When I got home, I went online to check the fares using the Fare Finder page. I entered From information as Mississauga Square One, and TO information as Mississauga: But for the life of me could not find anything in the drop-down station menu for 'airport', Pearson or any variation.

Here's the trick: Do NOT preselect 'Mississauga' as the TO destination -- even though it IS in Mississauga. Select 'All Cities and Towns' as the TO destination. Then the Station drop down menu lets you select 'Pearson Airport Terminal 1'. See screenshot below.



To check the schedule using GO Schedule Finder, also set the TO destination as 'All cities/towns'. Then the TO drop down menu lets you select 'Airport Express' (first item on menu).

The Fare Calculator page has a note telling us how to find bus info for Canada's Wonderland (Maple route); as soon as I am finished posting, I will send a comment to Go Transit suggesting they also put in a bit of information about how to find new Airport bus info.

The nice thing about this bus service is:
  • It operates nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
  • There's parking access from Centre View Drive on either side of Station Gate Road.
  • Starbucks is right there as a warm meeting place for your ride to meet you or to wait for someone.
  • You can connect from here to other Go buses to Guelph, Hamilton etc.
  • You can connect from here to Mississauga Transit routes across the street.
  • It's inexpensive - $3.75 per person ($1.90 for seniors and children) each way. Cabs cost me $46 each way from Port Credit. Parking at Pearson is $4/half hour. Gas is $$$.
  • It should help ease the traffic at Pearson Airport.

All in all, I for one, applaud Go Transit for this new route, as I have long since grown tired of driving out to the airport especially during rush hours.

Here's the Google Map for the Mississauga Square One Go Bus location. It's Item B at the west end of the Playdium parking lot. Don't be misled by looking for Starbucks, as Google shows it on the opposite side of Square One.



View Larger Map


UPDATE March 14 2009
GO Transit has increased fares by $.25 CAD (25 cents) per fare effective today. The GO Transit site will show new rates.

Update May 26, 2009
Used this service again on May15/09 to the airport and again last night back from the airport to Square One. $4 CAD per person. IMHO this service ROCKS!!!!!!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you this was very useful I was getting frustrated trying to get the info on the go site I finally called.
thank you for tking the time to be so explicit and include pictures etc. The only thing now is for some overnight parking close by
thanks again

Anonymous said...

I dropped my friend off and yes we had a difficult time finding where the bus stop was and almost just decided to drive to the airport but we asked a driver and he told us. There should be a large sign saying: Airport Bus Stop. Thanks for your detailed information. It is appreciated and the service will continue if it is used.

Karen said...

You're both welcome. I had originally posted this GO info as we also had trouble finding the stop.

And good point too about the larger sign saying 'Airport via GO express' or similar.

And once again, I am heading up to Square One, to meet someone coming in from Pearson Airport. I am very very happy that the service is still running, especially at nthis time of year.

I'll try and get someone at GO to look into this.

Cheers!

Jamzy said...

excellent and thorough information. Despite being a daily GO transit user for many years, I did not know about this service. Thanks for the information. Will try it out this week.

Anna said...

http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/en/schedules/lstser.aspx?station=AIRP&new=
I am coming to Toronto for the labor day weekend...
I still don't see it in the GO schedule coming out of Airport! Did they cancel this service from Airport to Square One? Is this still true "Trips will leave Square One at 10 minutes past the hour for Pearson, and trips will leave Pearson at 45 minutes past the hour for Square One. "?

Karen said...

YIKES!!! Totally missed this while out of town for a while - thank you for letting us know !

Here's from a press release on TTC site -

"Friday, April 2/2011 is the last day that GO operates buses along the route between Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson International Airport and the Square One Terminal at the Mississauga City Centre."

Such a shame but I guess it didn't get the PAX needed to keep viable.

WOW! there is Mississauga Transit service from Pearson to Square One - will look it up. I used it once before, and it's fine, just takes a little longer.

Thanks again!

Karen

Anna said...

Karen, thanks for the updates! I will try the Mississauga transit.

Karen said...

Oh, thank you for letting me know!

Here's the huge link for Miss Transit - took me about 15 mins to find the route - these transit schedules can be so frustrating! They all call Pearson airport by varying names so the search box gives you grief until you find the right combo :-)

==========to airport======
http://www4.mississauga.ca/ClickNRide/TVPDetails.aspx?moniker=Q3JlYXRlVFZQOlRWUERldGFpbHM6ODg3MTdjZjMtODllNS00NWIzLWE4NmUtNDU5NzFmZWY5YTkx

=========From airport to Sq 1===

http://www4.mississauga.ca/ClickNRide/TVPDetails.aspx?moniker=Q3JlYXRlVFZQOlRWUERldGFpbHM6ODg3MTdjZjMtODllNS00NWIzLWE4NmUtNDU5NzFmZWY5YTkx
=============

All I wanted to do was check that's it's the Route 7 bus. It does take about an hour and stops running around 1 am for a few hours.

And then there is no link on these route pages to get back to check what the fare is!!!

Why do they make it so difficult?

I plan to show up with some cash in hand and take my chances! Think Adult fare is around $3

Karen

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for all your great information. Toronto Airport Limousine

Unknown said...

how can i go to airport Toronto from Port Credit Go Sttation Missisauga and comeback?

Karen said...

You mean Pearson Airport, in north Mississauga, right?

I'd take the 103 express north or the Route 19 north from Port Credit GO to Square One terminal and transfer to the Airport Bus No. 7.

The buses leave the GO fairly often, though the 7 buses might be further apart.

You can call the Contact numbers on this page for details:

http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/miway/contactus


See http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/miway/routemaps

Karen said...

Update - Go Bus service Square One to Pearson is back as part of a new route -

See http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/travelling/airport.aspx for details.

GO Bus Route 40 – Hamilton/Richmond Hill as of Sept 5, 2015

"Service operates hourly on weekdays and weekends, and every 30 minutes during weekday rush hour.

"Travels between Hamilton GO Centre, Oakville Carpool Lot at Trafalgar/ Hwy 407, Square One, Pearson Airport and Richmond Hill Centre Terminal (Hwy. 7 & Yonge)

"Trip between Square One and Pearson Airport takes approximately 15 mins."

Adult single-ride ticket $5.55

(Note The original blog post cannot be edited on Blogger. :-(( So I hope you find the new route via comments.)

Cheers! I plan to use the GO to Pearson in mid-October! So happy to have it back!!

Unknown said...

This is such a cool concept! Lovely post. I live in Mississauga as well, and I am very inspired by your passion for travel and journalling.

Erindale Secondary School, my school is doing the MiWay Ambassador program and this year we are here to help inform and answer questions regarding issues or inquiries.
My blog is very similar to yours https://essmiway.blogspot.ca/
I would appreciate if anyone had the time to look through my blog or contact me regarding any issues or comments. Thanks! :)
MiWay Ambassador @ Erindale Secondary School

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