With the snow days at their peak in Waterloo and the first year’s being on campus for their first winter, it is important to travel safely through the campus, whether you are getting to a lecture room or going out on your 10 minutes lecture break to grab a snack. In this article, I will share a few tips and tricks that can help you plan your commutes within the campus and also allow you to make short stops for grabbing some healthy snacks on your way.
For all us engineers, mostly all the lectures are held in the east and the south-east buildings on campus and if you commute by bus, there are a bunch of different stops that you can walk to from the nearest building. Commuting into the campus on bus 7D, I usually get off at South Campus Hall stop and walk into SCH to grab my morning coffee. During my first year, most of my lectures were in DWE and RCH and I would walk a few steps and enter DWE, go downstairs to the first floor and take the tunnel to RCH. Once you are inside RCH or DWE, you can commute to any engineering building without going out in the snow. The tunnel from the first floor DWE opens in the 2nd floor RCH, and if you keep walking straight on that floor you will enter into the 1st floor of E2. You can also enter to E2 from the overbridge on DWE 3rd floor which connects to the 3rd floor in E2. E2 is connected to CPH, so if you feel hungry on the way to your lecture room in E7, it is time to grab a snack from the CnD near poets in CPH. CPH is also one of the buildings on campus that are closer to the university plaza shops, instead of walking out in the snow all the way from SCH you can now walk to CPH comfortably and run to the plaza right across ring road. From the 2nd or the 3rd floor in E2, you can enter E3 and walk through the mechanical labs and take the stairs to the 3rd floor to get to E5 via the overbridge. Feel free to stop on the overbridge to take a quick selfie if there’s a need to update your LinkedIn profile picture otherwise keep walking to enter into E5 on the 3rd floor. E5 is connected to E7 on every floor. If you are already out of coffee from the Tims in SCH, you can grab another one at the cafe on the 1st floor in E7 and hopefully stay alive and up in your lecture. From E7, you can enter E6 using the overbridge on the third floor. For your lunch and dinner, you can easily go out to your favourite shop in the plaza from E5, E6 or E7.
Now if you are looking for a library to get some “actual” work done, you can walk outside from E5 to DC building, or you can take a bit longer but indoor route where you cross the E5 overbridge and continue to get to DC 2nd floor from E3. DC has a couple of Tim Hortons, one of which is an express. You can also grab food from Bon Appetite on DC ground floor. To get to DP library, you can walk out from RCH instead of taking the outdoor route and keep yourself safe from the black ice.
Another indoor route that one might find useful in their day to day campus commute is getting to SLC. For the most part, you can take an indoor route to QNC and walk to the nearest SLC entrance from there. To get to QNC, you can go from E3 to 3rd floor EIT and enter Biology 1 and Biology 2 and finally take the overbridge from Biology 2nd floor to QNC 2nd floor. This route is also useful for students who take buses that usually run on Columbia street, as they can get to the bus stops on the west side of ring road by getting to STC from 2nd floor in Biology 1 building and walk outside to their nearest bus stop.
Lastly, by covering all these indoor routes, one should also take full benefit of the cafes and other eating services that come on their way. With a small amount of smart commute planning, you can enjoy a latte at Starbucks on one day and a coffee at Tims on another day. Or you can choose from various coffee flavours offered at different cafes around the campus and not get tired of eating the same things every day. The tunnels and the overbridges might not be the fastest ways to get from point A to point B, but they definitely help you get your steps in and keep you warm and safe from the snow outside.
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