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'!

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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.

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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 :-)
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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!!!!!!