Short term in Toronto - where to stay

kenmc

Hi,
being sent to Toronto for 2 months for work, bringing my wife and 9 month old daughter with me. Will be working in Brampton, but want to ensure that there's sufficient in the location of where we stay to keep my wife and baby from going stir crazy while I work.

Am currently leaning towards living in toronto downtown and driving to/from Brampton, but am open to suggestion. Work are paying for the apt, costs etc so am not really too concerned about the cost (within reason of course!). Was looking at some corporate lettings around the harbourfront, near Union Station - how would the commute from there to Brampton be?

Any info would be much appreciated. Flights booked for 28 June, but am on hols for the next 2 weeks so would like to give the travel girls in work some guidance on where to look.
Thanks in advance!
K

JohnEnglish

Let me preface my statement with: I was born and raised in Toronto and I currently still live there.

Brampton is located north west of Toronto. Your two choices are to drive or to take the train. I'd suggest the train unless you're working odd hours and can avoid rush hour traffic. Assuming no traffic at all, you're looking at a 30 - 40 minute drive. With traffic that time is easily doubled or more. The train ride will take you about 30 - 40 minutes but at least you avoid the hassle of driving in traffic, plus the cost of parking in downtown Toronto.

As for things to do in Brampton, it's a suburb or Toronto and is largely a residential community. It does have some shopping and other activities but nothing like Toronto has. It also has a very large south east Asian population so there's a lot of stuff geared towards that community.

kenmc

Thanks for the quick response. I was looking at the train and either I don't understand it, or it seems that the trains only run *from* brampton *to* union in the mornings, and from union to brampton in the evenings, with the rest of the day being a bus transfer i.e. union to brampton in the morning would be a bus, and only once an hour, in which case I'd be probably better off driving so, so that I won't miss a bus by 5 mins and have to wait 55 more...

I was kind of thinking that I'd be going more against the flow of traffic by leaving toronto in the morning and heading back in the evening?

Would there be somewhere a bit closer to Bramptom which would still provide enough for the family to do that you would recommend instead?

JohnEnglish

kenmc wrote: »

Thanks for the quick response. I was looking at the train and either I don't understand it, or it seems that the trains only run *from* brampton *to* union in the mornings, and from union to brampton in the evenings, with the rest of the day being a bus transfer i.e. union to brampton in the morning would be a bus, and only once an hour, in which case I'd be probably better off driving so, so that I won't miss a bus by 5 mins and have to wait 55 more...

I was kind of thinking that I'd be going more against the flow of traffic by leaving toronto in the morning and heading back in the evening?

Would there be somewhere a bit closer to Bramptom which would still provide enough for the family to do that you would recommend instead?

I re-read your post and I realize that you'll be staying in downtown Toronto and working in Brampton. I thought it was the reverse!

Yes, the train, also known as GO Transit or "the GO train" (the GO stands for Government of Ontario since the service is owned and operated by the provincial government) only runs trains on some routes during rush hour. The rest of the time a bus services the route. I can't comment on the traffic going in the opposite direction too much as I haven't driven that particular route. However, my experience with driving against the commute from the suburbs to Toronto has been that it's still heavy traffic but nowhere as bad as if you were driving into Toronto in the morning and back to Brampton in the evening.

You could check out the north end of Toronto (also known as North York) and the west end (also known as Etobicoke). Those are outside of the downtown core and will be a bit close to Brampton but they're still in Toronto and if you're close to the subway will still allow easy access to the rest of the city. They're also mature areas so there's more than just housing.

A bit off topic, but some Toronto info that may help you out. Toronto as it's know today is made up of 6 different cities that were merged in 1998. There's the "old" city of Toronto (essentially the downtown area), Etobicoke (the west end), York (between old Toronto and Etobicoke), North York (the north end of the city), East York (between North York and old Toronto), and Scarborough (the east end). So you'll often hear people refer to portions of the city of Toronto by their former names.

The GTA (or Greater Toronto Area) refers to the suburbs surrounding the city, and the city of Toronto itself.

kenmc

I'm going to be working on Dixie road, at Rogers campus; google maps tells me that the morning commute would be around 50 mins, likewise the return trip "in current traffic" would be 48 mins. How does school term affect traffic? I know in Dublin from about next weekend the traffic will seem to evaporate, I'd hope it'd get lighter similarly in Toronto?
Thanks again for the info.

retalivity

Brampton has a lot of 2nd and 3rd generation irish there.

You could look at etobicoke, halfway between downtown and brampton. the commute from there wouldn;t be as long.
Also the subway comes out that far so the family could get into the city relatively easy

JohnEnglish

Most students take public transit as opposed to driving so the school term doesn't really have a big impact on traffic. So even though universities and colleges are out for the summer you won't see much of a let up in traffic.

An hour sounds about for that trip from downtown but that assumes there's no problems. Accidents and the ever present road construction will slow down your trip even more.

Staying in central Etobicoke might be a good idea since it's closer to Brampton while still being accessible to public transit in Toronto (the TTC). There subway line has a lot of apartments built along it so you can probably find something near the west end in Etobicoke that would allow easy access to the subway for your family.

kenmc

What I was referring to more in terms of traffic is the school rush that we have over here, where parents insist on taking their car to drive their precious young darlings right to the door of the school, thus blocking up all the traffic. Once summer holidays starts that disappears. Of course it might be different in Canada in that kids may get busses or walk to school more or something?

JohnEnglish

kenmc wrote: »

What I was referring to more in terms of traffic is the school rush that we have over here, where parents insist on taking their car to drive their precious young darlings right to the door of the school, thus blocking up all the traffic. Once summer holidays starts that disappears. Of course it might be different in Canada in that kids may get busses or walk to school more or something?

Yes, many parents drive their kids to school here. However, the resulting traffic back up is only really an issue on the residential side streets where the school is located. Since you're diving primarily on highways and main roads you most likely wouldn't be affected by any "school traffic" even if it was during the school year.

kenmc

fair enough - it has a knock on effect here though as it clogs up all the main roads too, so presumed it'd be the same there. Anyway. will put up with it for 2 months!

JohnEnglish

It's not really an issue here since schools are usually located deep within residential neighbourhoods so there's little chance of traffic backing up onto the main roads. If you have any other Toronto, or Canada in general, questions let me know.

ciaran67

Airbnb or Roomarama