Bexleyheath is well connected, with buses everywhere and a train line that fewer people use than you would expect. A bus comes past most stops every few minutes at peak. The broadband is close to complete. More people work from home than catch the train. The railway built the town, and these days the town mostly drives past it.
Bexleyheath Rail Station is on the Bexleyheath Line, with direct trains to London Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Victoria. Barnehurst and Welling stations cover the edges of town, and Bexley, Crayford and Falconwood are close by. At the 2021 Census only about 9% of working residents took the train to work. There are 77 bus stops in the area, with routes to places such as Bromley, Woolwich, Lewisham and North Greenwich, but only about 6% of workers used a bus to get to work. Alfred Bean pushed for the line in the 1880s to sell houses around Danson Park, and the people in those houses now mostly drive past it.
The commute here splits two ways. At the 2021 Census about 38% of working residents worked from home and about 35% drove, with walking at about 6% and cycling at about 1%. That Census was taken during a lockdown, so the home-working share is high, but even with that allowance the car comes ahead of the railway with room to spare. About 22% of households have no car and about 33% have two or more.
On the Department for Transport's modelled journey times for the area, the nearest town centre is about 8 minutes away by car, 9 by bike, 11 by public transport and 12 on foot. With the car, the bus and your own feet within four minutes of each other, the choice comes down to what you are carrying back.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 95% of premises and superfast about 98%, and every postcode has 4G or 5G on every network.
There are 5 public charge points in the area, with 12 connectors between them, and 2 of those are rapid. With 2 rapid units, charging is something to plan ahead, because there is not much to fit in around a shopping trip.
For most residents that adds up to a car for the big shop and the job, a bus for nearly everything else, and the train for the occasional trip into central London.
The Department for Transport's modelled averages for the area put a doctor's surgery about 7 minutes away by car and about 10 on foot or by public transport. A food shop is about 6 minutes' walk or 7 by car, and the nearest large employment area is about 16 minutes by car or 17 by public transport. A hospital is about 19 minutes by car and about 38 by public transport. Distances to fixed places like these do not change, but the public transport figures were modelled in 2019, and buses have been cut in places since then, so those are the times most likely to be out of date.
The bus service itself is measured from current timetables. Each stop averages about 427 scheduled departures on a weekday and around 25 an hour at peak, and every one of the 77 stops has some service at weekends. Those are departures, not routes, and a stop with that many buses works as a turn-up-and-go service.
Road noise is where the connections cost something. Every postcode in Bexleyheath, all 100%, is near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road traffic as significant, and the loudest band in the area is 75 decibels and over. Rail noise is a separate source and touches only about 1% of postcodes. The Romans gave the town a main road for a spine, and the traffic on it has not got any quieter. Visit a house you are interested in at rush hour with the windows open, because the modelled band for its postcode will not tell you how loud it is in the bedroom.
Bexleyheath is well connected for daily life, with the buses, the broadband and the car times doing better than the train, and the noise is the price of having so many roads.