How do I get from the airport to Edmonton?

Edmonton International Airport (YEG) sits about 30 km south of downtown, off Highway 2. Your best bet is Edmonton Transit's Route 747 bus, which departs from the arrivals level outside Door 10 and runs directly to Century Park Transit Centre. The flat fare is $5 CAD ($3.57 USD), and it covers your transfer to the Capital Line LRT. The bus takes about 25 minutes to Century Park. From there, the LRT heads north through the river valley to Churchill Station, another 25 minutes. Fifty minutes total, $5 all-in. The 747 runs roughly every 30 minutes from around 4:30am to midnight. You'll hear the automated stop announcements in English and French, and the bus tends to be half-empty outside of commuter hours. It's heated in winter, air-conditioned in summer, and has luggage racks near the front doors.

If you land after midnight, or if you arrive in January when the wind chill drops to -35°C and the air feels like it's biting through your jacket, take an Uber. Pickups happen at the arrivals curb, and the fare to downtown typically runs $35-50 CAD ($25-36 USD). Surge pricing is rare at YEG since the airport handles modest passenger volumes compared to Toronto Pearson or Vancouver. Standard taxis line up outside arrivals too, with a flat-rate zone fare to downtown of about $60-65 CAD ($43-46 USD). That $15-20 premium over Uber gets you nothing except skipping the app. Mind you, the drive north on Gateway Boulevard into downtown passes the Whitemud Freeway interchange, and morning rush hour between 7:30 and 8:30am can add 15 minutes to what is otherwise a 30-minute ride.

The airport is a single terminal, so there's no inter-terminal shuttle confusion like at Toronto Pearson. Baggage claim is on the arrivals level, car rental counters sit right there, and the parking garage connects directly. Once you reach Churchill Station downtown, you're within a 10-minute walk of Rogers Place arena, the Art Gallery of Alberta on Sir Winston Churchill Square (founded in 1924, though the current building dates to 2010), and most Jasper Avenue hotels. In June, you'll step out of the station into 20°C air and daylight that stretches past 10pm. The Legislature Grounds sit a 10-minute walk south, where the scent of lilac fills the paths in early summer. In December, expect -20°C, dry cold that cracks your lips within hours, and near-total darkness by 4:30pm. Download the ETS app before you land. It shows real-time Route 747 arrivals and Capital Line schedules, which is worth having when it's -25°C at the bus stop.