Bloomsbury is very well connected, as long as you don't count the car. Three main-line termini are on its northern edge. Buses run past almost constantly. Most households have no car at all. About half the working residents didn't commute anywhere when last asked, and those who did mostly walked.
London Kings Cross, London St Pancras International and London Euston all sit along the district's northern boundary, and the Eurostar to Paris and Brussels leaves from St Pancras. Yet only about 3% of working residents took the train to work at the 2021 Census, and about 7% took the bus, from 121 bus stops in the area. The trains here are mostly for leaving.
The commute mix explains why. At the 2021 Census about 50% of working residents worked from home and about 19% walked, against about 5% who drove and about 4% who cycled. About 80% of households have no car, and only about 3% have more than one. In a district where the office, the library and the lecture theatre are all a short walk away, the car is mainly something other people park on Gower Street.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics, which are modelled averages for the area and date from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 11 minutes away by car, about 12 by bike, about 17 by public transport and about 22 on foot. A town centre is an odd idea for a district in the West End, and those times say more about how the model draws its boundaries than about any real trip to the shops.
Everyday errands are short, on the same modelled 2019 figures, and the bus and Tube times are the ones most likely to have changed since, as services come and go while the destinations stay put. The nearest GP is about 4 minutes on foot or by public transport and about 6 by car. A food store is about 4 minutes' walk, or about 7 by car. A hospital is about 11 minutes by car or about 14 by public transport. The nearest employment centre is about 3 minutes' walk, about 6 by public transport or about 7 by car, which suits a district where the Knowledge Quarter's universities and institutions are the local employers.
Bus stops here are busy, which the bare count doesn't show. A typical stop in the area has about 840 scheduled departures on a weekday and about 44 buses in the peak hour, and about 99% of stops have a weekend service. Those figures are current timetables. Nobody in Bloomsbury needs a bus timetable, because the next one is already pulling in.
All that traffic has a cost. About 95% of postcodes are near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats traffic as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise doesn't register on the same measure. Camden's roadside monitoring in 2017 also recorded nitrogen dioxide well above the national clean-air objective. Visit any flat you are serious about in the morning rush and open the bedroom window, because a figure covering nearly every postcode won't tell you which side of the building the bed is on.
Broadband is close to complete. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 95% of premises and superfast about 97%, and no premises fall below the universal service minimum. Mobile signal is just as thorough, with every network reaching every postcode, which matters in a district where half the workforce is on video calls.
There are 52 public charge points in the area with 87 connectors between them, and just 1 of those is a rapid charger. With so few cars here and only one rapid unit, charging is something you plan for. You won't be topping up while you buy a sandwich.
Bloomsbury is well connected, comfortably better than average, and it would be outstanding if anyone here needed to drive. The trains, buses and fibre are excellent, and the price is traffic noise outside almost every window.