Limousine service at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre

The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre: Vaughan's downtown

Ten years ago the VMC was a power centre and a plan. Today it is an office district with a subway station at its centre, towers rising on every block, a YMCA, a library, restaurants at street level and thousands of residents in the condos — Vaughan's first genuinely urban neighbourhood, and the place a chauffeured service treats differently from the rest of the city because pickups happen at tower drives and terminal lanes rather than driveways.

The airport run from the VMC

The 407 interchange at Jane is two minutes from the towers, and the 407 west to the 427 south and the 409 puts a VMC passenger at Terminal 1 in 20 to 22 minutes off-peak with the toll inside the fare. The 400 south to the 401 west is the free alternative and the right one late at night; in the morning it is the wrong one. For Billy Bishop, the 400 to the Gardiner in 40 minutes — or, for a passenger without luggage, the subway to Union and the Porter shuttle, which we will tell you is sometimes the smarter choice.

Pickup logistics: towers, terminals and the rapidway

Highway 7 through the VMC has the Viva rapidway in the median and is not a place to stop. The office towers — the KPMG tower, the PwC tower and their neighbours — have visitor drives or garage loading areas the chauffeurs use; tell us the building. The condominium towers have porte-cochères and concierge desks; the chauffeur meets in the lobby. For the subway station itself, the passenger pickup lane on the north side is where the chauffeur waits, and for the Highway 407 station and its bus terminal the passenger pickup area at the station is the meeting point; both are covered in the guide, because "hwy 407 bus terminal" is one of the most-searched phrases in Vaughan and most of the people searching it want to know where a car can meet them.

Corporate VMC

The towers host professional-services firms, banks, the regional offices of national companies, and the corporate accounts that go with them: the Premium Sedan to Terminal 1 at 6 a.m., the visiting partner from Pearson to the tower with meet-and-greet, the hourly day between the VMC, a client in Mississauga and a closing on Bay Street, and the Sprinter for the delegation from the airport to the office and dinner in Woodbridge. Fares for the VMC-to-Pearson route are fixed at account set-up; invoicing is monthly by cost centre. The chauffeurs know which tower loads from where.

Conferences, galas and the hotels

The VMC and the hotel cluster along Highway 7 to the west — Element, SpringHill Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Novotel, Courtyard among them — host conferences and corporate events, and the transportation for them is a coordinated booking: sedans for speakers from the airport, a Sprinter or party bus shuttle between the hotels and the venue, sedans to the dinner at a Concord hall or a downtown restaurant. One coordinator on our side holds the plan. Delegates staying at the hotels book the hotel-to-airport run from the door.

Residents: the condo towers

Thousands of people now live in the VMC towers, and their bookings are urban: the black car to dinner downtown or in Woodbridge, the airport run with luggage the subway makes awkward, the Luxury SUV for the ski weekend, the stretch for the anniversary. The chauffeur meets in the lobby; the concierge knows the drill.

Transit connections

Travellers arriving at the VMC by subway from downtown, or by GO bus at the Highway 407 terminal from Hamilton, Kitchener, Barrie or York University, and heading to a Vaughan address, a Kleinburg estate or the Wonderland hotels book a chauffeur to meet them at the station. It is the connection the transit system does not make: the last ten kilometres to a door. The guide explains both terminals' layouts and where the car waits.

Landmarks and the guides

The subway station, the Highway 407 station and terminal, the SmartCentres Place terminal, the towers, the YMCA and library, the Edgeley Pond park; Vaughan Mills and Canada's Wonderland ten minutes north on Jane; the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital the same; the Concord banquet halls five minutes east; the Woodbridge restaurants ten minutes west.

Routes from the VMC

Pearson in 20–22; Billy Bishop in 40; downtown in 35; Niagara Falls in 95 via the 407 and the QEW; Blue Mountain in 95 up the 400; Muskoka in 110; Buffalo Airport in two hours plus the border; Hamilton Airport in 65. The VMC is the most central Vaughan address for every route.

Booking from the VMC

Building name and "lobby" or "visitor drive" in the engine notes; for the stations, "subway pickup lane" or "407 station pickup"; fare fixed. For accounts and events, the contact page.

The VMC's blocks, for anyone booking a pickup

The district runs roughly from Highway 400 east to Creditstone Road and from the 407 north to Portage Parkway and beyond, centred on Highway 7 and Jane Street. Jane Street is the north–south spine with the subway station entrance and the 407 interchange two minutes south. Highway 7 is the east–west spine with the Viva rapidway in the median, the SmartCentres Place bus terminal on its south side, and no kerbside stopping. Millway Avenue runs north from Highway 7 beside the station with the tower drives on it; Interchange Way, Apple Mill Road and Portage Parkway are the tower and condo streets; Edgeley Boulevard runs along the east with the pond park. The office towers have visitor drives or garage loading areas; the condominium towers have porte-cochères; the subway station has its passenger pickup lane on the north side; the Highway 407 station has its pickup area at the terminal. A chauffeur collecting at the VMC needs the building's name and the drive, and gets it from the notes.

A VMC week, from the dispatcher's screen

Monday: 5:45 a.m. Premium Sedans to Terminal 1 for two partners from the KPMG tower on account, a condo resident's Executive Sedan to Terminal 3, and a subway-arrival pickup at the station lane for a consultant from downtown going to a Kleinburg client. Tuesday: a visiting director from Pearson to the PwC tower with meet-and-greet, and an hourly day between the towers, Mississauga and Bay Street. Wednesday: a GO-bus arrival at the Highway 407 terminal from Hamilton, met and driven to the hospital in Maple. Thursday: a conference at the Highway 7 hotels — Sprinter shuttles to the venue, sedans for the speakers, a coordinator on our side — and dinners downtown for the condo residents. Friday: the towers empty to the airport, and a Luxury SUV from a condo to Blue Mountain. Saturday: a wedding stretch from a condo tower to a Thornhill synagogue and the Venetian, and a party bus for a condo resident's birthday. Sunday: the conference delegates to the airport, and the last subway's passenger home to Maple at one in the morning. All from cars positioned at the VMC.

The VMC's calendar

The office towers set a weekday rhythm — six to nine in the morning, four to seven in the evening — that the 407 interchange at Jane amplifies. The conference calendar at the Highway 7 hotels fills the shuttles. The condo towers add the evening and weekend bookings that make the VMC the only Vaughan community with a downtown-style pattern. The subway's last train and the GO terminal's late buses create the late-night station pickups. And the district is still building: new towers open every year, the streets change, and the chauffeurs' knowledge of which drive is which is updated as they do.

Living at the VMC, and the bookings that follow

The condominium towers have brought thousands of residents to a district built for offices, and their bookings are the ones a downtown produces: the Friday black car to King West, the airport run with the luggage the subway makes awkward, the Sunday hourly chauffeur to the McMichael and lunch in Kleinburg, the stretch for the anniversary, the SUV to Blue Mountain with the skis stored in the locker downstairs. The concierge holds the chauffeur's details; the porte-cochère is the meeting point; the 407 ETR two minutes away is the road to everywhere. The Concord page has the halls and hotels next door; the VMC and Highway 407 terminal guide has the stations.

The VMC's hotels, in detail

The Highway 7 hotel cluster west of Jane — the Element Vaughan Southwest, the SpringHill Suites, the Hilton Garden Inn Toronto/Vaughan, the Novotel Toronto Vaughan Centre, the Courtyard, the Holiday Inn Express, the Hampton Inn and the Residence Inn among them — is the VMC's hotel row and Vaughan's, and their guests are the conference delegates, the wedding parties, the Wonderland families and the Concord offices' visitors. Hotel-to-airport, hotel-to-hall, hotel-to-office and hotel-to-park are the four bookings, each from the lobby or the porte-cochère, each a fixed fare; the travel desk books the rooms.

The district's evolution, and the chauffeur's map

The VMC changes every year — a new tower, a new drive, a street opened or closed for construction — and the chauffeurs' knowledge of which building loads where is updated as it does. A booking from a tower that opened last month works because the dispatcher checks the drive before the first pickup, not because the map app knows it. Tell us the building's name, and if it is new, the drive the concierge uses; the confirmation will state the meeting point.

Book a limousine at the VMC

What the VMC actually books

The corporate airport run, from the towers, on the 407. The visiting partner with meet-and-greet. The conference shuttle. The condo resident's dinner downtown. And the subway-to-door connection nobody else provides. Cars are positioned at the VMC because the towers start moving at six.