Pearson Airport to Union Station!
by Scott A. Sumner
It was nice to do some travelling to Toronto recently to watch the RBC Canadian Open held at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club.
I was interested in trying out the new Pearson Airport to Union Station train service. This service takes about 25 minutes and really gives you a great view of what Toronto is like, with the freeways and overpasses near the airport and then travelling along the route towards the downtown core with so many different types of neighborhoods.
The end of the trip is at the Union Station which has been quite renovated and is a very significant transportation hub in Toronto, Ontario and Canada.
My first visit in the downtown core was to the historic Fairmont Royal York hotel, which is quite iconic and almost gives you the sense of being in another era with its fancy lobby area, restaurants and classic charm.
The Pearson airport is pretty busy, the busiest airport in Canada, and it's nice to be able to get a quick passage to the downtown core of Toronto. It is easy, just sit back with good room and relax.
One thing I found out in Toronto is travelling out to Hamilton on the QEW 403 and other highways is definitely an experience you need to get used to. I did live in Toronto while attending university but things seems to have changed quite a bit since then and the traffic is pretty intense. You really have to know exactly where you want to go with the exits because it seemed like the people travelling these roadways wanted to get to their destination quickly and didn't have much patience if you don't know exactly where you want to go. It was nice to have a GPS in my rental car and it is also available on your phone with Google maps, which, if paired with your car will give you voice directions and visual directions on the screen in the car.
One other thing I learned on this trip is that the rental car companies are having trouble getting enough vehicles, so that means that they are holding their cars longer. My rental car had almost 80,000 km on it, which is something I've never experienced in the past.
Another thing that I noticed is how busy the flights are out of Thunder Bay to Toronto. It seems like there is an under capacity of flights on that route now, perhaps with the elimination of any WestJet flights to Toronto and also the fact that Air Canada only offered two flights per day, including one at 5 AM which isn't really that desirable. Porter Airlines continues to offer five flights today to Toronto and also two flights to Ottawa direct, so that is quite impressive. I think that the people are now travelling more after the pandemic and that demand has created the need for more flights. One person who works in the airline industry told me that there is quite a shortage of pilots and aircraft which has created this ability to have full flights, not like I experienced in the past when I travelled frequently from Thunder Bay and to other locations around the globe.
At the end of the day, though it was quite fun to do this trip and get to see another part of Canada again. Toronto is definitely a glitzy city and I specifically like the downtown core with the large office towers and all the amenities that major world-class city like Toronto offer!
