How far is Waterloo from Toronto?

What is the easiest affordable way for a student on a tri to commute between Toronto, to Waterloo in Ontario?

• I am a graduate international student currently studying in Vancouver. I should attend a conference at the end of May in Wilfrid Laurier/ University of Waterloo in Waterloo, ON, and I am planning to stay for a night or two at my cousin's place in Toronto. The conference is at 4pm in Waterloo University and my cousin's place is in Toronto, I want to know how much it takes to commute between these two locations/cities. I have heard it is about 1 hour. What is the cheapest and most affordable way to commute between these two places? P.S. I don't drive. My cousin who lives in Toronto drives, but I am not sure she would be able to give me a ride on that day as it is not a weekend.

• Answer:

  That's OVER an hour of travel each way by car and that's if traffic on the 401 highway is in your favor. In reality the one hour number is sadly out of date -especially once you reach Milton where traffic always jams up. and don't get me started on the trqaffic inside Toronto. I once spent three hours going from Jameson to Spadina on the Gardener Expressway. The people on Lakeshore were stuck for four hours. Waterloo and Toronto are over 60 miles apart, and public transit is awkward and difficult between the cities. It might be cheaper, faster and easier to find accommodation in Waterloo than to make the awkward late day commute. The Go transit bus is cheapest and takes you directly to the university campus, but it only goes as far as Square One Missisauga and not all the way into Toronto. Depending on where your friend lives in Toronto (Scarborough or other east end location -the city is sprawled out and huge) it could be an hour long commute just to get to Square One to pick up the bus. Go Trains are timed for commuting to Toronto in the morning and back to Kitchener in the evening, so once your get to Kitchener there's no go train back to Toronto later on. Via Trains are another option but they aren't as cheap. Finally there's Greyhound service, but it's a long trip because of frequent stops. Once again: It might be cheaper, easier and less stressful to stay in Waterloo. Here's details of Go Buses between Toronto(Mississauga) and Waterloo http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/weblog/2009/10/09-details_of.shtml The full GO schedule site: http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/en/schedules/schedules.aspx TTC transit site: http://transit.toronto.on.ca/index.shtml Waterloo region transit: http://www.grt.ca/en/index.asp Ask your cousin the help with transit issues, she can get tickets, schedules and fares.