Toronto Airport to Windsor & the University of Windsor

Should I arrive at Pearson or Detroit for the University of Windsor?

The third option is the connecting flight from Pearson to Windsor's own airport — Air Canada flies it a few times a day, an hour in the air — which a through-ticketed student takes; the fourth is VIA Rail from Union to Windsor, four hours on the train plus the UP Express and a taxi at each end. The chauffeur is for the arrival where the connection has failed, the family with more luggage than the airline allows, and the group that shares the Sprinter; the long-distance page explains how a four-hour fare is set and the London route covers the first two hours of the drive.

The campus beside the bridge

The University of Windsor's campus fills the blocks between Wyandotte Street, Huron Church Road, the riverfront and the Ambassador Bridge approaches on the city's west side, and the bridge's towers are visible from every residence window. The residences — Alumni Hall on Sunset Avenue, Cartier Hall, Laurier Hall and Macdonald Hall on the campus's west side, and the newer halls — are reached from Sunset Avenue or from Wyandotte Street, with drop-off zones at each; the chauffeur enters from Wyandotte rather than from Huron Church Road, which is the truck route to the bridge and no place to stop. The Odette School of Business is on Sunset Avenue, the law school on the campus's north side, and the downtown campus buildings — the School of Creative Arts in the old armouries, the social work school on Pitt Street — are a ten-minute drive east along Riverside Drive. Students in the houses and apartments of the west end, along Wyandotte and in Sandwich Town, are an ordinary Windsor address at the same fare.

Move-in, the international arrival and the four-hour drive

Windsor's move-in runs the weekend before Labour Day with assigned windows per residence. A family flying into Pearson for it lands in the morning, lunches at the Woodstock or the Dutton service centre on the 401, and arrives at the residence window in the afternoon in a Sprinter sized for everything a room needs. International students arrive in the last week of August, and Windsor's intake is large: single arrivals from long-haul flights, met inside Terminal 1 or 3 with a name board on the meet-and-greet add-on, driven four hours with two stops, 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; a group of students from the same country on the same flight shares the Sprinter for less per head than any other way of making the trip.

Cross-border students and the Detroit side

Windsor has more students who cross a border daily than any other campus in the country: the American students from Michigan who commute over the bridge, the Canadian students in the Detroit hospitals and the Michigan placements, and the families on both sides. The cross-border service is the tool: a fixed fare from the campus to Detroit Metro airport for a student flying home from the US side, the reverse for an arrival, and the transfer to a Detroit hotel, a Tigers or Red Wings game, or the DIA for a visiting family — with passports for everyone in the car, the vehicle's border documents in order, and the border wait at the bridge and the tunnel read before leaving. Detroit Metro is forty minutes on a good day and an hour and a half on a bad one; the chauffeur builds the buffer in from the live feed.

Parents, visits and the two cities

Windsor's hotels for a visit are the Caesars Windsor hotel tower on the riverfront — the casino is the city's landmark — the Best Western Plus Waterfront, the Holiday Inn and the Hampton downtown, and the Hilton Garden Inn on the riverfront; a family that has driven from Pearson arrives at the hotel after the four-hour drive and does the campus the next morning. The visit is two cities: Windsor's riverfront and the Sculpture Garden, the Hiram Walker distillery in Walkerville, the Point Pelee national park an hour south-east — the southernmost point of mainland Canada — and, across the river, Detroit's museums, the Riverwalk and the stadiums, on the chauffeured day with the student collected at the residence. Convocation in June is at the campus with the family car on Sunset Avenue.

The Odette School, the automotive industry and the working visitor

Windsor's professional traffic is the automotive industry's: the Odette School of Business and the engineering faculty's automotive research, the Stellantis assembly plant and the parts suppliers across the city and Essex County, and the cross-border business that runs through the bridge every day. A visitor's trip is a Pearson or Detroit transfer to a hotel, a chauffeured day between the campus, the plants and the suppliers — sometimes on both sides of the river — and the departure timed to the flight, on a corporate account with monthly invoicing. Visitors who prefer the four-hour drive from Toronto to the connection use it as a working day on the vehicle's Wi-Fi.

Winter on the 401 to Windsor

The January intake and the return from the winter break put the four-hour drive into the snowbelt for its whole length: the 401 between Cambridge and London crosses the Lake Huron squall paths, the stretch between London and Chatham is the flattest and most exposed highway in the province, and the whiteouts around Tilbury are the ones that close the road. 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 Woodstock, Dutton or Tilbury service centres with the passengers warm inside.

Departures and what the fare includes

The departure to Pearson is four hours on the 401 east, 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, which for a morning flight means the small hours — with the terminal finder confirming which terminal; the departure to Detroit Metro is forty minutes plus the border. The fare is fixed by vehicle class for the Windsor address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area, two stops on the way and the included waiting; meet and greet is the paid add-on; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free.

Graduate students, the medical campus and the mid-year arrival

Windsor's January intake — one of the largest in the province for graduate programmes — its exchange students and its medical students at the Schulich Windsor campus bring the arrivals outside move-in weekend: a master's student in the first week of January into the flattest, windiest stretch of winter in the province, a visiting scholar with a family and a year's luggage, a medical resident arriving for a placement at Windsor Regional Hospital. The addresses are the graduate apartments, a rented house in the west end whose keys are collected from a landlord, or a hotel for the first week, and the booking carries each of them; the child seats are fitted before the pickup for a family. A group of graduate students from the same country on the same January flight is the trip where the Sprinter from Pearson beats every alternative: one booking, one four-hour drive with two stops, and each student delivered to a door that is expecting them because we called ahead.

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