Pearson Airport to Brock University

How do I get from Pearson Airport to Brock University?

The public route is the GO Transit bus or train from Union to St. Catharines — the train a few times a day, the bus from Burlington — and a city bus up the escarpment to the campus, three hours from the terminal with the changes and the luggage carried at each. The chauffeur is the version that runs from the arrivals curb to the residence door at a fixed fare with the vehicle sized to the load; the Pearson-to-Niagara route has the QEW timing hour by hour and this page is the campus.

The campus on the escarpment

Brock's campus sits on the Niagara Escarpment south of St. Catharines, reached by Sir Isaac Brock Way from the 406 or by Glenridge Avenue from the city, with the Schmon Tower visible from the QEW miles away. The residences are on the campus's edges: DeCew and Vallee on the west side with drop-offs off the ring road; the Village townhouses and Earp on the south with their own lanes; Lowenberger and Gateway near the main entrance; Quarry View, the newest, on the east. The chauffeur knows which entrance serves which residence, which matters at move-in when the campus roads are one-way and marshalled. Upper-year students in the houses and towers along Glenridge Avenue, in Thorold south of the campus, and in the student neighbourhoods of St. Catharines are an ordinary address, and the fare to any of them is the same St. Catharines fare.

Move-in, orientation and the international arrival

Brock's move-in runs the weekend before Labour Day with assigned windows per residence and the campus roads marshalled by the residence staff. A family flying in for it lands at Pearson, is at the residence ninety minutes later in a Sprinter sized for everything a room needs, and stops at the Pen Centre on Glendale Avenue on the way for the things left behind. International students arrive in the last week of August — Brock's international intake is large — as single arrivals from long-haul flights, met inside Terminal 1 or 3 with a name board on the meet-and-greet add-on, driven ninety minutes and delivered to the residence check-in with the luggage inside and a text to the parents overseas. The pickup page explains the meeting points; the family and accessible page the luggage allowance and the extra time.

Parents, visits and the Niagara weekend

A Brock family's weekend is a Niagara weekend, and the hotel choice is the region's: White Oaks is at the Glendale exit ten minutes from the campus, the Vintage Hotels in Niagara-on-the-Lake are twenty minutes, the Fallsview towers are twenty-five, and the St. Catharines hotels — the Holiday Inn on Ontario Street, the Four Points, the Best Western — are ten minutes down the escarpment. The Friday arrival from Pearson and the Sunday departure are two fixed fares on one confirmation; the Saturday is the chauffeured day with the student collected at the residence: the Falls and the Niagara Parkway, the wineries on the Bench and in Niagara-on-the-Lake, the Shaw Festival, or the Welland Canal locks that the campus overlooks. Convocation in June is in the Ian Beddis Gymnasium with the family car on the ring road.

Goodman, the Marilyn I. Walker School and the working visitor

Brock's Goodman School of Business, its Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts in downtown St. Catharines beside the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, and the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario on the campus bring the professional traffic on this route: executives on the Goodman programmes, touring performers and directors at the arts school, athletes and coaches at the sport institute, and the recruiters and visiting faculty who fly into Pearson for a day or two. A visitor's trip is the ninety-minute transfer to a hotel, a chauffeured day between the campus, downtown St. Catharines and — often — a winery lunch, and the departure timed to the flight, on a corporate account with monthly invoicing. The Niagara region's wine and tourism industries bring their own visitors, and the campus is the region's conference venue in summer.

From the campus: the Falls, the border and Buffalo

Brock is twenty minutes from Niagara Falls and thirty from the US border, which makes two things routine that are unusual elsewhere. The first is the day out: the Falls, Clifton Hill and the Parkway are a chauffeured afternoon on the Niagara tour pattern without the ninety-minute drive from Toronto. The second is the Buffalo airport: fifty minutes from the campus across the Peace Bridge or the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, and for a student heading home to the United States on a cheaper fare it is the better departure, booked through the cross-border service with passports and the border wait checked before leaving. The Meridian Centre downtown for the IceDogs and for concerts is on the event pattern; the St. Catharines GO station is the connection for a student going to Toronto by train.

Winter on the QEW

The January intake and the return from the winter break put the QEW into its hardest weather: the lakeshore highway is exposed to squalls off the water, the Skyway closes to high-sided vehicles in a crosswind, and the escarpment above St. Catharines takes the snow first. The chauffeur reads Ontario 511 before leaving, the vehicles run winter tyres, and a drive that cannot be made safely is rescheduled rather than attempted; a trip already under way waits out a closure at the Grimsby service centre with the passengers warm inside.

Departures and what the fare includes

The departure to Pearson is the QEW northbound, planned backwards from the flight: pickup at the residence at the time that reaches the terminal ninety minutes before a domestic departure and two and a half to three hours before an international one, with the Burlington-to-Mississauga stretch as the buffer and the terminal finder confirming which terminal. The fare is fixed by vehicle class for the St. Catharines address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area and the included waiting; meet and greet is the paid add-on; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free.

Graduate students, exchange terms and the mid-year arrival

Brock's January intake, its exchange students on a single term and its graduate programmes bring the arrivals outside move-in weekend: a master's student in the first week of January, a visiting scholar with a family and a year's luggage, a teacher-candidate arriving for the education programme's winter placement. The addresses are the graduate townhouses, a rented apartment on Glenridge Avenue or in Thorold whose keys are collected from a landlord, or a hotel for the first week — often White Oaks for a family — and the booking carries each of them; the child seats are fitted before the pickup. The winter arrival is where meet and greet inside the hall earns its price: a student who has never seen snow, landing at 9 pm into a squall off the lake, walked to a warm car and driven ninety minutes to a door that is expecting them.

Groups, tournaments and the summer campus

Brock's campus and the Canadian Sport Institute make it a summer venue: the sport camps, the tournaments at the campus's fields and pool, the language schools and the international summer programmes fill the residences between May and August, and each brings its own airport traffic — a team of twenty arriving on the same flight for a tournament, met at the group meeting point inside the terminal and driven in the Sprinter on one manifest; a summer school's students arriving through the day on the shuttle pattern; the camp families on a Sunday. All price as the same St. Catharines fare, and the group bookings are invoiced to the programme on a corporate account.

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