What is the best way to get to Toronto Pearson Airport?
The best way depends on where you start. From downtown Toronto the UP Express train is hard to beat: it runs from Union Station to the airport in 28 minutes for a fixed fare. From anywhere outside the city core, a flat rate car is usually simpler and often cheaper than driving and parking, because you pay one price and you do not leave a car behind for a week.
Pearson has two terminals. Terminal 1 handles Air Canada and the other Star Alliance airlines. Terminal 3 handles WestJet, Air Transat, Flair, Porter and the Oneworld and SkyTeam airlines. Check your boarding pass before you set off, because the two terminals are a shuttle ride apart once you are on site.
Whatever you choose, the airport asks you to be there 2 hours before a flight inside Canada and 3 hours before a flight to the United States or overseas. Add your travel time on top of that.
Your options, and when each one is the right call
Here is every sensible way to reach Pearson, with the honest trade-off for each. We run one of them, and we will still tell you when one of the others suits your trip better.
Trains run every 15 minutes, from 4:55 in the morning until 1:00 at night, and from 6:00 in the morning at weekends. It stops at Bloor, Mount Dennis and Weston on the way. It is the fastest option from downtown and traffic cannot slow it down. The catch is that you have to get to Union Station first, with your bags, and the train arrives at Terminal 1, so Terminal 3 flyers take the free terminal link train from there.
Regular TTC fare gets you to the airport on the 900 Airport Express from Kipling station, among other routes. It is by far the cheapest way in. It is also the slowest, it involves changes, and it is unpleasant with large suitcases or small children. Good for a light traveller on a budget, poor for a family with four bags.
The airport sits where highways 427, 409 and 401 meet, so driving is easy enough outside rush hour. Parking is the problem. A week in the garage costs more than most people expect, and you finish a long flight with a drive home. It makes sense for a short trip where someone else needs the car while you are away.
Easy to arrange and fine for a short hop. The price is the issue: a meter keeps running in a traffic jam, and rideshare apps raise prices at exactly the times flights leave, which is early morning, Friday evening, and during a storm. You also have no guarantee a car will accept a 4:30 in the morning trip from a suburb.
You book a set price for your city and vehicle, and that is what you pay, whatever the traffic does. The driver comes to your door, tracks your flight on the way back, and meets you inside the terminal with your name on a sign. It is the most expensive option from downtown and often the most sensible one from an hour out, where parking for a week and two return taxi fares cost more.
When should I leave for Pearson?
Work backwards from the airport's own advice: be there 2 hours before a flight inside Canada and 3 hours before a flight to the United States or another country. Then add the travel time from where you live, then add a cushion for the road.
The cushion matters more than people think in the Toronto area. Highway 401 through the middle of the city slows to a crawl on weekday mornings, which is the same direction and the same hour as most airport runs. A trip that takes 40 minutes on a Sunday can take 90 on a Tuesday.
For a flight leaving before 6 in the morning, book your ride the night before rather than the same morning. Early departures are the hardest slot to fill at short notice, whoever you book with.
Getting to Pearson: common questions
Short answers to what people ask most about reaching Toronto Pearson.
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