Toronto Airport to London, Ontario & Western University

How do I get from Pearson Airport to Western University?

The alternatives are the VIA Rail train from Union to London — two hours on the train plus the UP Express to Union and a taxi from London station to the campus, four hours in all with the luggage moved three times — and the intercity coaches from Pearson, which take longer. London's own airport, twenty minutes from the campus, is the right answer for the few flights that land there, and the London airport page says which. The chauffeur is the two-hour version that ends at the residence door at a fixed fare, and the London route page explains the 401 timing; this page is the campus.

The campus and the residences

Western's campus runs along the Thames north of downtown London, entered from Richmond Street at the university gates, from Western Road on the west side, or from Windermere Road at the north. The residences are large and named: Saugeen-Maitland Hall on Western Road, the biggest first-year residence in the country; Delaware Hall and Medway-Sydenham on the central campus; Perth, Essex, Elgin and Ontario Halls along Sarnia Road and Western Road on the west; Alumni House and London Hall on the east; Lambton Hall, the newest, near Windermere. Each has a drop-off loop or a lay-by and a move-in plan of its own, and the chauffeur knows which entrance serves which hall — Western Road for the west residences, the Richmond gates for the central ones. Upper-year students in the houses of Old North and the towers on Richmond Row and along Oxford Street are an ordinary London address.

Move-in, O-Week and the international arrival

Western's move-in runs the weekend before Labour Day with assigned arrival windows per residence and the campus roads marshalled by sophs in coloured shirts, and its Orientation Week is the largest and best-organised in the province. The two-hour drive changes the arithmetic: a family flying into Pearson for the move-in books the Sprinter, lands in the morning and arrives at the residence at the assigned window in the afternoon, with a lunch stop at the Cambridge or Woodstock service centres on the way. International students in the last week of August are the single arrivals — met inside the terminal with a name board on the meet-and-greet add-on, driven two hours with a stop if they want one, delivered to the residence check-in with the luggage inside, and a text to the parents overseas at the door. The pickup page explains the meeting points and the long-distance page the pricing logic for a two-hour fixed fare.

Homecoming, convocation and the parents' weekend

Western's Homecoming in late September or early October is the largest alumni weekend in the country, and the hotels in London fill months out: the Delta Armouries, the DoubleTree, the Park Hotel on Wellington, the Hilton on King, and the Best Western and Holiday Inn properties along Wellington Road and Wharncliffe. Alumni flying in from Vancouver, Calgary, New York and London book the Friday arrival from Pearson to the hotel and the Sunday departure on one confirmation, and the Saturday — the game at Western Alumni Stadium, the parties along Broughdale, the dinners on Richmond Row — is a chauffeured block with a car that waits. Convocation in June repeats the pattern with grandparents and the graduate's belongings for the flight home, and the ceremony at Alumni Hall with the family car on Western Road.

Ivey and the working visitor

The Ivey Business School on the campus's east side and its Donald K. Johnson Centre downtown are Western's professional traffic: executives on the Ivey programmes, recruiters running interview days, guest speakers and visiting faculty who fly into Pearson, spend a day or two in London and fly out, and the case-competition teams from other universities arriving as a group. A visitor's trip is the two-hour transfer to a downtown hotel, a chauffeured day between the campus and the downtown centre, and the departure timed to the flight — on a corporate account with monthly invoicing. Ivey's frequent visitors keep a profile with the account, and the two-hour drive is the working time on a laptop with the vehicle's Wi-Fi rather than a gap in the day; the corporate page explains the account.

From the campus: London and the southwest

Western is the western end of most of this site's routes and a base for the southwest. Stratford and its festival are forty-five minutes north-east; Grand Bend and the Lake Huron beaches are an hour north-west; the wineries of Lake Erie's north shore an hour south; Detroit two hours west across the Ambassador Bridge for a student heading home to Michigan, with the border wait checked before leaving. Within London, Budweiser Gardens for the Knights and for concerts is downtown on Dundas Street, ten minutes from the campus, on the event pattern, and the Covent Garden Market and Richmond Row are the visiting family's evening. The London airport on the east side is twenty-five minutes.

Departures and what the fare includes

The departure to Pearson is the 401 eastbound, 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 a pre-dawn start and a chauffeur who is at the door on the minute. The fare is fixed by vehicle class for the London address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area, a stop 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 January intake and the winter 401

Western's January intake and the return from the winter break put the two-hour drive into the hardest weather of the year: the 401 between Cambridge and London crosses the snowbelt, where the squalls off Lake Huron close the highway a few times each winter and the whiteouts around Woodstock and Ingersoll are the ones the OPP warn about. 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 service centre. Graduate students with families, visiting scholars with a year's luggage, the exchange students on a single term and the medical residents arriving for placements at the London hospitals are the mid-year arrivals, with addresses that are the graduate apartments, a rented house in Old North whose keys are collected from a landlord, or a hotel for the first week.

The hospitals, the research parks and the medical visitor

Western's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry and the London hospitals — University Hospital on the campus's north side, Victoria Hospital in the south, St. Joseph's downtown — bring a professional traffic that is medical rather than academic: visiting physicians and surgeons, pharmaceutical and device companies with meetings across the hospitals and the research parks on Western Road and at Discovery Park, and the patients transferred from Pearson after an overseas flight for treatment in London, booked with the extra time and care the accessible page describes. A visitor's trip is a hotel pickup, a chauffeured day between the campus, the hospitals and the research park, and the departure timed to the flight, on a corporate account with monthly invoicing; the two-hour drive each way is working time with the vehicle's Wi-Fi.

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